Milan-Benevento Preview: Are You a Good Witch? Or a Bad Witch?

This fixture could be hexed. If you’ll remember, the away fixture was Gattuso’s Serie A debut, and it was anything but magical. But now “Le Streghe” or “the Witches” are coming to the San Siro. Will they bring their brooms? Or would that be considered Quidditch? I don’t know. But when they do arrive, much like when Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz finds herself unexpectedly in Oz, I think it’s fair to ask them “Are you a good witch? Or a bad witch?”

Beware of that witch for sure

Diabaté is a good witch. A very good witch. That is if you are a Benevento fan. For Milan, he could prove to be very, very bad. He was actually kept off the scoresheet midweek, but he had scored three consecutive braces in their matches before that, including against Juventus. The witches lost to Atalanta 0-3 midweek, which means they’ll be that much more desperate to take points from us. For that match, De Zerbi lined up Puggioni; Djimsiti, Tosca, Billong, Viola, Del Pinto, Lombardi, Venuti, Diabaté, Parigini, and Brignola. De Zerbi has a few injuries to worry about, but his team have been playing much better since Milan handed them their very first ever Serie A point.

Gattuso has got to be telling himself still that he is not in Kansas anymore. And he would be right. He will be at the San Siro, hosting these tricky witches, and there will be tens of thousands of Milan fans there who will expect a successful witch hunt. With cauldrons full of goals for us. To add injuries to insult, in addition to Conti and Romagnoli, Calhanoglu will miss this match due to a knee sprain (at least it was nothing worse!) It is not known as of this writing whether Musacchio, the new father of twins, will return to the squad after his doubly-exciting week. But after drawing in stoppage time to a goal from their keeper back in November, Gattuso will need the courage of a lion, the brains of a scarecrow, and the heart of a tin man in his starting eleven. Or some serious witchcraft.

We will be missing his sorcery for sure

These are the kinds of games that this Milan is very capable of winning. But unfortunately, we have been playing to our opponents’ levels. And if we do that on Saturday, then only the devil could help us. Which sounds good on paper, being Diavoli and all, but help only comes to those who help themselves. And we haven’t been doing ourselves any favors lately, with zero wins in five matches. So maybe when the whistle blows we just get back to playing good football, and forego worrying about what kinds of witches they are.

This post inspired by the music of Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”

Serie A Week 34

Milan vs. Benevento

Saturday, April 21 • 20:45 CEST (2:45pm EDT)

This match will be shown on LIVE on RAI Italia in the U.S.