The first Champions League match of the season is here, and it is a matchup that evokes nightmares or dreams, depending if you are thinking of Istanbul or Athens. Milan are hosting Liverpool at the San Siro in our very first League Phase match, the new format of the Champions League. Cardinale must be thrilled about this draw, because RedBird technically wins either way. Liverpool is 60% owned by Fenway Sports Group, of which about 10% of that is owned by RedBird Capital. As RedBird are also the owner of Milan, either way, Gerry wins, and this matchup becomes the RedBird Show.
This is the team coming into this match.
The new League Phase of the Champions League includes 36 different teams. Each team will play eight different teams, half at home, and half away, and at the end of the League Phase, the top eight will automatically go to the Round of 16, while there will be a two-legged knockout round for the 9th-24th place teams to determine the final eight spots. The bottom 12 teams in this phase go home. So the point is to accrue as many points as possible in these eight matches, with three points for a win and one point for a draw. Milan got a decent draw, but start out with one of the tougher opponents on Tuesday.
Arne Slot spoke respectfully of Milan, but said Liverpool do not fear them.
After their mutual love affair ended with the emotional departure of Jürgen Klopp last season, Dutch manager Arne Slot had Liverpool off to a flying start this year with three wins in a row... until Saturday. Liverpool hosted Nottingham Forest at Anfield, and lost 1-0, putting Forest just one point behind them on the table. For that match, Slot lined up a 4-2-3-1 with: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Konaté, van Dijk, Robertson; Gravenberch, Mac Allister; Salah, Szoboszlai, Luis Diaz; and Diogo Jota. Slot is missing Harvey Elliot due to injury, but confirmed that new signing Federico Chiesa, just signed from Juventus, will not start, but is fit and will travel with the rest of the team and will be available from the bench if needed vs. Milan. Slot said they respect Milan, but do not fear them.
Clearly, he has been watching our season. Milan are obviously coming off of their first win of the season on Saturday, a 4-0 drubbing of Venezia, who are now bottom of the table. That brought Milan up from 14th place to 10th place in Serie A, with just five points in four matches. However, it was a morale boost heading into this difficult week. Given all the controversy surrounding the club, it was so very needed, too. Certainly, Fonseca needed it to have some hope of maintaining his position after such a poor start to the season.
 |
| Fonseca's one-man good cop/bad cop show with Leão is childish and exhausting. |
Speaking of Fonseca, he has not been able to do anything to change Milan's injury curse. In fact, Bennacer flew to Finland and had surgery on his calf on Monday, and will now be out for four months. Wishing him all the best and a speedy recovery. Also recovering from their respective surgeries are Sportiello and Florenzi, and Thiaw has also still not recovered from his ankle injury. Only four players out injured sounds like nothing compared to what we are used to, but it is only mid-September, and three of four of those are longterm injuries. Fonseca does get Calabria back from injury, and maybe an even bigger morale boost, Ibrahimović has returned from vacation and was at Milanello on Monday to motivate both Fonseca and the team.
There is more history than just the two finals between these clubs. Liverpool were the club we faced in our very first Champions League match in 2021-22, when we returned after a seven year absence. Milan were young and inexperienced, but still went up 2-1 at Anfield before Liverpool finally came back with the 3-2 win. They were also the club we faced on our final match day in that Group Stage, and we lost that one as well, making the difference between finishing second in that Group of Death or crashing out. However, if you think this is an entirely bad omen, remember that 2021-22 was the year Milan won the Scudetto.
The ex-Chelsea boys are waiting for the Liverpool boys.
Morata was very positive in his prematch press conference and highlighted the importance of the Champions League, including pointing out that the first thing he did upon arriving at Milan was to get his shirt with the Champions League patch on it. Unfortunately, his first Champions League match in a Milan shirt will not be in front of a sold out stadium, as only 55,000 tickets had been sold as of Monday. Whether that is due to the controversies, poor performances, high ticket prices, or any combination or all of the above, it is a shame that our boys will not have the full support of their fans in a home match.
Liverpool will either react to their loss on Saturday by being even more motivated, or they might crumble to the English-teams-in-Italy curse, or a performance that is anywhere in between. What is most important is that Milan need to take their game up a notch or twelve. Fonseca insists they are very motivated for this match, and I hope that is true. I also hope that he learned his lesson from Saturday to play a different system, as even he said he liked Reijnders and Loftus-Cheek at those positions. A win would be amazing, a draw would be great, but a loss would not be the end of the world, as we have seven more matches to get enough points to not be eliminated after this phase. However, I don't know if Gerry Cardinale even cares which team wins or loses, given that he did not even know about Milan's Champions League history, and that he technically is invested in both sides. For him, this one will simply be the RedBird show.
This post inspired by the music of The Math Club's "Gimme That Money"
Reviewed by Elaine
on
9:01 PM
Rating:
