Milan, Leao’s only hint of the derby: why on the bench?

He designed the most dangerous action of the entire Rossoneri match, and so the question that had already agitated the Milan fans before the match becomes even more cumbersome once the match is over: why Leao among the thirteen on the bench instead of among the eleven on the field? A kind of unpleasant tongue-twister that generates stomach aches, bad moods and increases the pressure from the Rossoneri squad on the coach. “I chose to play with two close strikers and for these characteristics I think Origi and Giroud are better, Rafa will be very useful in the game in progress,” Pioli said a few minutes before the kick-off. A tactical decision, therefore, although in these days more of a physical nature is filtering through Milanello with a certain force. In short, Rafa has his battery down, but the reasoning that everyone makes is in any case only this: someone like Leao must always play the derby, even on one leg.

Thoughts

—

With this we are at the second exclusion in a row, after the one with Sassuolo, and the thing is starting to take on a certain importance because in this Milan that trudges, gets lost and sinks ever lower, there are not many players capable of splitting a game. To invent something. Just think of Tonali’s crisis, who plays out of breath and misses elementary balls. Or Hernandez, who has been a mystery bordering on the unfathomable for several weeks now. Or Giroud, also back in pieces from the World Cup, who can’t stop an easy ball in the area and sends the only real offensive action to the shredder. Yes, exactly that action we were talking about earlier invented by Leao. Things that until a couple of months ago it was normal to see, and that now can be miserably counted on the fingers of one hand. Rafa came in and who knows what he was thinking at that moment. Perhaps to a coach with whom he is no longer on the same wavelength as before, or perhaps to a Milan side about which it is permissible to ask questions in terms of the future.

Characteristics

—

Leao gave Barella a hand and took the yellow card, asked Theo to serve him and Tonali to assist him. He put Giroud in a position to score, but in reality there was only one match that Milan tried to play twenty minutes from the end, after a bleak and embarrassing first half. Sure, Rafa is certainly not in a period of great fluency, but it’s difficult to think that he wouldn’t have been useful in the first part of the match. At the end of which Pioli defended his decision: “Leao has enormous potential. The choice to play with two closer strikers was to put Inter’s defense in difficulty. Rafa has to stay active throughout the game and he’s a player we count on a lot. The choices I’ve made are the best for what I’ve seen during the week: he doesn’t have the characteristics for two vertically close strikers.” An exclusion, therefore, which the technician had been thinking about for several days and not a last-minute surprise. The biggest problem, if anything, are the alternatives: Origi’s performance shows that right now the Belgian is unable to play as a starter. Regardless of the game system.