Milan put on their killer new Off White suits, and showed up to King Fahd Stadium for all of the prematch hype. They changed into their amazing new Puma prematch kits and warmed up on the pitch, as usual. Pioli lined up his best 11, and Maresca blew the whistle for kickoff. Then Milan went missing in action (MIA). They showed up for the second half, but left their guns on stun, not kill. In the end, Inter won 3-0 and walked away with the trophy and prize money that was €500,000 more than ours. (Which is ironically how much we spent in the January transfer market.) But Milan were still paid to be MIA.
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| Turns out you can put a price on losing, and it's not a lot less than winning |
The first half saw goals from Dimarco and Džeko while Milan were still sightseeing. 2-0 Inter. Tatarusanu pulled off a few saves, and both Leão and Tomori took chances that went wide. In the 42nd, while Džeko was grabbing Tomori, it looked like he may have grabbed more than the hem of his shirt/the front of his shorts. Maybe that is why Tomori was off, being violated like that is disturbing. Or it could have been their clash of heads just two minutes later. Either way, he never really showed up.
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| Poor Messias will remember his 50th appearance for Milan in a painful way |
In the second half, Milan decided to play. Kind of. Theo, Bennacer, and Leão all took shots that ended up just over the bar in the first four minutes. Ten minutes in, Kjaer took on Lautaro Martinez one vs. one in the penalty area and successfully stopped him. Bennacer took a powerful shot, but it was straight at Onana. Milan ended with 14 shots in total, but only three on target. Inter only needed 12, but six were on target.
In the 64th minute, Pioli subbed on De Ketelaeare, Kalulu, and Origi for Brahim Díaz, Kjaer, and Origi, respectively. Leão forced Onana into a save, then Tatarusanu had a save at the other end of the pitch. The never-Scudetto Calhanoglu got a yellow card for fouling Giroud, then Theo Hernández got a yellow card for fouling Correa. Then Lautaro Martínez scored a third goal, right before Pioli could bring on Dest and Rebić. 3-0 Inter.
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| They cannot hide the fact that the mentality is completely broken right now |
Calabria was crying after being subbed off, and those tears represented all of us, I think. There was maybe one more shot, and Tonali got a yellow card, but Milan did not stand a chance after the third goal. With only ten minutes plus stoppage time, it really did not matter if they were there or not. I suppose it was appropriate, playing in a country that has been sportswashing to cover up their human rights violations, that the team with morals would suffer.
While losing any match is painful, losing to Inter is always a particular type of pain. The trophy would have been lovely, but it is not that painful to lose something you did not already have. Plus, we got medals. Perhaps the worst, however, was that this was another cumulative poor performance in ten days worth of poor performances. The mentality is very visibly and painfully broken in the team, and no one seems to be able to fix it for even 45 minutes at a time, let alone 90.
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| A second place medal will burn and give Pioli a lot to think about |
The damage to mentality will potentially have far more long-reaching consequences than anything else from tonight. Unless Pioli is able to take advantage of this loss like last year's 3-0 Coppa Italia loss to Inter and turn our season around, this loss could be so much worse than a losing a meaningless trophy or even losing to Inter. But hey, at least the club will get a cool few million Euros for all of the pain. At least Milan were paid to be MIA.
This post inspired by the music of Muse's "Sing for Absolution"
Stay tuned for an all new Milan Obsession Podcast
Reviewed by Elaine
on
8:30 PM
Rating:
