Even the best teams trip up eventually, and Milan is hardly
the best team this year. But after a spectacular run of eleven straight league
games unbeaten, with draws to Roma, Empoli, Udinese, and Napoli as well as
seven wins dating back to January 9th, it hurts to lose. Especially to a team to
whom we’ve never won when playing away in the league. As well as losing to the
team sitting right behind us on the table. But if you didn’t see this coming,
then you failed to read the
writing on the wall.
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| Yeah, it was that bad. |
The most difficult part of a loss like this is not even the
three points or how it affects our position on the table, but how the team
performed. Whereas in so many of the matches lately, it’s been difficult to
choose a man of the match, for this one, it was difficult to choose a fail of
the match. The tabloid-style journalists and social media will say that it was
Balotelli, because that gets you more clicks. But starting in the league for
the first time since his injury, he actually had a higher rating from Who
Scored than his in-form strike partner Bacca, who had half the possession as
Balotelli with fewer excuses.
Balotelli’s start was much criticized even ahead of the game
by those
who apparently don’t read, but was necessary due to fitness and
availability of pretty much no one else. Those calling for Menez to have
started ahead of Balotelli might be interested to know that in his 35 minutes,
being even less fit than Balotelli, he also got a lower rating than Balotelli
from Who Scored. And this sad tale gets even sadder when you look at the impressive
attacking trident Di Francesco had at his disposal.
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| Take a bow, Duncan, you deserve it. That was beautiful. Painfully beautiful. |
I could write paragraphs about how poor everyone was, but it
was really the team’s performance at large that cost us. We came out with our
gloves on for the first half, like literally Bonaventura got a yellow card in
the first minute. On the whole, we took 13 shots, with five on target, which is
not bad, but worse when you consider that most of them happened in the first
thirty minutes. But then we faded after the first goal, a brilliant shot from
distance by Duncan in the 27th. 1-0 Sassuolo. Small consolation here in that
Berardi’s assist on this goal was the only place you’ll see his name on the
scoresheet this time around. Donnarumma took over after that, facing 16 shots
with four on goal, including a couple of his trademark superhuman saves.
Unfortunately, not even Donnarumma could save the second
goal, which Sansone scored in the 72nd, just minutes after Romagnoli replaced
the apparently unfocused Zapata. 2-0 Sassuolo. There was a bit of controversy
here as Biondini brought his cleat down on Bertolacci’s thigh area well before
the shot was taken, but no foul was called, and the goal stood. This incensed
Mihajlovic, who complained to Giacomelli, who then sent off the coach (no water
bottles were harmed in this episode.) In his post match comments, Mihajlovic
admitted to sharing some choice words with Giacomelli, but only after the
sending off. So we’ll see what the league has to say about that and who will be
on the bench on Sunday.
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| Two wrongs don't make a right, Mister. |
In keeping with the low-impact subs, Boateng came on for
Honda in the 82nd. And Kucka took a knock late in the match as he tried to jump
over a player. Hopefully it was nothing serious. Sassuolo won’t be so lucky, as
they had two players subbed off due to injury by the 63rd, Cannavaro and
Missiroli, with the latter stretchered off the pitch and looking quite serious.
They will also be without Defrel in their next match, who got a yellow in the
63rd, and a second yellow for a foul on Kucka in the 76th, so was sent off. And
while those losses may impact whether or not they can catch us anytime soon, we
couldn’t catch them or even get a consolation goal with them playing on ten men
for the last 15 minutes or so. In fact, they fired like crazy in the final
minutes, Donnarumma got quite the workout. That’s how bad it was. And how good
Sassuolo was, they deserve massive respect for their season to date and
especially this match.
However if you are thinking this was an end of the world
match, it wasn’t. I’d made a deal that I would use the word “consistency” in
regards to the team if we won or at least performed well up through this match.
Because having watched football for a couple of years, I know that the
rebuilding process is not without setbacks. This is one time I wish I was
wrong, but I also know that given what we’ve seen since January 9th, we will
see more good things again. Possibly soon. Our striker situation is pretty poor
at the moment, but if and when Balotelli, Menez, and/or Adriano can regain
match fitness, there is no reason to believe we can’t at least hold our sixth
place spot and qualify for Europa League.
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| If we're not careful, we'll be chasing Sassuolo in the league soon, too. |
That goal is important, especially now that Galliani is focusing on winning the
Europa League final in May to distract from the mindnumbingly
poor decision he made that could single-handedly keep Milan from
achieving his goal of reaching the Champions League. But hey, who needs the
€90m+ that Juve got from Champions League last year for getting to the final
when we could get almost €10m+ from playing in the Europa League instead? And bag a
meaningless Coppa Italia trophy and wear a patch on our kits next year (if we
can somehow beat Juve in a one shot match?) And
get €13m from Roma for El Shaarawy (after giving them €45m for Romagnoli and
Bertolacci last year?) With such brilliant decision making from the top, it’s
amazing Milan played as well as they did for so many matches. I mean the
writing was on the wall.
This post inspired by the music of
The Sundays’ “Here’s Where the Story Ends”
Our next match is
Chievo vs. Milan
Sunday, March 13 • 12:30 CET
*Reminder to U.S. fans that Daylight Savings Time begins at 2am on Sunday so be sure to set your clocks forward for the game