Milan 5 Sampdoria 1

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Oh boy, quite the weekend of football! Lots of moving pieces and we’ll get into that, but first: ratings!

Let’s go.

Player Ratings

Goal Keeping

MAIGNAN 7 Not much Maignan could’ve done on the Quagliarella goal as that was almost entirely on Theo. Other than that, wasn’t tested too often and did a good job commanding the area. Loved that the beautifully-developed 5th goal started with him getting the ball out quickly and getting his guys moving forward. Good stuff

Goal Keeping Overall: 7

Defense

HERNÁNDEZ 6.6 As I just mentioned, was pretty much responsible for the Sampdoria goal, as he got beat on the dribble and then challenged too early and too far away to stop the play. But, he was otherwise solid

TOMORI 7.2 Solid game all around especially with Sampdoria not packing it in. Sure, could’ve gone in on Theo’s man maybe a half second quicker on that goal but again, not on him

THIAW 7.8 Best of the backline all day. Positioning was solid (something to always watch for in a young player) and damn near had his first goal. Kid is amazing in the air. Most likely a must-start player next season

CALABRIA 7 Had a fine game but Sampdoria seemed to prefer going up the middle or the left, which is weird. If I was playing Milan I’d go right at Calabria all day

Defense Overall: 7.3 Pretty good vs a team playing freely. The conceded goal gave me pause for a second but it was pretty clear shortly thereafter that Milan wasn’t going to waste the day

Midfield

TONALI 8.4 Moving around and throwing darts all game. It’s easy to see him playing more advanced next season in whatever formation Pioli decides to go with because his passing is just so good

KRUNIC 7.1 Solid game except when he got forward. When he got forward he butchered that opportunity he had. Stay back, homie, and boss the area and win back the ball. That’s your job

Midfield Overall: 7.8 Fun to watch the midfield firing on all cylinders. Tonali is the man

Forwards

LEÃO 8.8 Scored a goal? Check. Got an assist? Check. Drew a penalty? Check. Beautiful hockey assist? Check. Leão being Leão? Check

DÍAZ 9.0 That whole sequence on the first goal to Leão. Aside from Leão, he’s the only other player on the pitch who can do something like that. Then the nice cross for his second assist and the capping off the beautifully built up goal that Maignan started. Fun game for Mighty Mouse

MESSIAS 6 Worst player on the pitch by a mile. It’s been time for Saelemaekers to start for a while now, I’d like to see it next weekend

GIROUD 9.3 Not bad for the wily vet. The last one with Nuytinck draped all over him was the best of the 3. Best day for Giroud in quite a while. Bravo

Forwards Overall: 9 Messias likely brings this down if you did an actual average but the frontline was just too good on the day, so for me the overall score stays high. What a fun thing to watch then the other team is willing to play football

Subs

SAELEMAEKERS 6.7 Been consistently good for a while now. Time to start him, Pioli

DE KETELAERE 6 I think all of us wanted him to get one in the final 20 minutes he came on the pitch, but sadly he didn’t even sniff an opportunity. Still, it’d be nice for him to break out of this slump before the end of the season

Subs Overall: 6.4 Didn’t really matter as Milan was up when these guys came in but you’d still like to see them contribute in a positive way…mostly check?

Coaching

PIOLI 9 You win 5-1 then you get a good grade from me as coach. Yes, it was vs 20th Sampdoria but coming off a disappointing 2nd leg in the Champions League earlier in the week and no one really knew how Milan would respond. But respond they did and it was a fun thing to watch.

None of this was a surprise given that a not-very-good-team played open and Pioli got to play Pioli-ball. The trick is to either get teams to open up when you play them so that you CAN play Pioli-ball, or get better at playing those packed-in sides. Something for the offseason though and on this day it was good to be a Milan fan 

Final Thoughts

The theme for the day was passing. Passing, passing, passing. Man it’s been awhile since we’ve seen beautifully-played football. This is how we want every game to go, particularly vs those bottom-table teams, whether realistic or not. So, I know I’m going to enjoy what we all saw. Best of all, it keeps Milan in the driver’s seat for a top 4 finish. 

While we’re on the topic of a top 4 finish, let’s look at the league table now that round 36 is complete…

Serie A Standings

There are now just 2 league games and 6 points left on the table. Let’s look at the remaining games for the top 7 teams:

Race for the Top 4

  • Napoli 86pts (1st): Scudetto champs
  • Lazio 68pts (2nd): Cremonese, @Empoli
  • Inter 66pts (3rd): Fiorentina (Coppa Italia), Atalanta, @Torino, Manchester City (Champions League)
  • Milan 64pts (4th): @Juventus, Hellas Verona
  • Atalanta 61pts (5th): Hellas Verona, @Inter, Monza
  • Roma 60pts (6th): @Fiorentina, Sevilla (Europa League), Spezia
  • Juventus 59pts (7th): Milan, @Udinese

I’ve been telling everyone lighting their hair on fire about the league standings to just be patient, that there were still lots of moving parts and games to be played. Sure enough, the biggest news this weekend dropped today and that’s Juventus getting docked 10 points in the table for the capital gains fraud (aka, plusvalenza), taking them from 2nd to 7th and not the best odds to finish in the top 4.

In the end this is more than the 9 points prosecutors wanted, less than the 15 initially handed down, and is all still too little for what these clowns did. Still, there are more sanctions coming, one for lying about paying players during the pandemic, which as a publicly traded company, means they defrauded investors. While that’s a local sanction coming, UEFA is also still very likely to hand down a European ban of what should be a considerable length for cooking the books. If you can get banned 2 years (later reduced down to 1) for incompetent team management – LIKE MILAN DID – then UEFA better drop the hammer on these crooks for lying, concealing, and cheating their way to a decade of silverware. Personally, I’m expecting them to get a 5yr ban subsequently reduced to 3-4yrs. Even then that’s too lenient. Juventus need to be dissolved or shot into the sun.

The worst part, or at least a contender for the worst part, are the Juve fans playing victim and worse yet, some sports commentators making up excuses for the club. One in particular on Twitter irked me and I had to respond…

Rant over.

As to Milan’s chances for top 4, well they’re in 4th now and I believe a win vs Juventus this Sunday gets them in because they own the head-to-head tiebreaker with Atalanta and Roma and Juve wouldn’t be able to catch them on points. There are other scenarios as well, like if Atalanta or Roma drop points or if Juve can somehow run the table. I’ll refrain now and dive into this for the matchday post this Sunday since Atalanta, Roma, Inter, and Lazio will have all played by the time Milan and Juventus kick off in their head-to-head matchup. Just about everything could be settled by then or nothing could. But with Milan able to finish this season anywhere from 2nd (still a chance!) or 7th with a disastrous finish and some very unlucky breaks, the stress and FUN of a top 4 finish isn’t over yet.

Ok, let’s look at the relegation battle:

Relegation Battle

  • Lecce 33pts (16th): @Monza, Bologna
  • Spezia 31pts (17th): Torino, @Roma
  • Hellas Verona 30pts (18th): Empoli, @Milan
  • Cremonese 24pts (19th): Doesn’t matter
  • Sampdoria 18pts (20th): Doesn’t matter

Very little changed here after round 36. Lecce and Spezia drew against each other and Hellas is still stuck on 30pts and in the last relegation spot. Cremonese is officially going down now as well as they are 7 points back from safety.

A win for any of these 3 teams this weekend puts MASSIVE pressure on any of the 3 who don’t secure points in round 37. For us Milan fans, ideally we’d like Hellas Verona to get an outcome this week that eliminates any chance they have at survival considering they play Milan for the last game of the season. Ideally Milan will have nothing to play for (really) with a top 4 place secured but even then they would have to think about Champions league pot positioning. 

Ok, I think that’s it for this post match ratings and wrap up. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading and let’s get that Champions League spot locked down this weekend vs those effing cheaters!

Forza Milan

gillis

*Comments in the comment section (especially Raf) reminded me about the floods in Emilia-Romagna and just wanted to say our hearts and thoughts are with the people of the region going through this natural disaster. Sports always come second to real life events but it was sports that made it known to a lot of the rest of the world that this was happening, once again showing how important a platform can be to spread awareness. It was nice seeing Serie A have the moments of silence and many of the players showing their support in a myriad of ways. Forza Emilia-Romagna