After the worst start in decades, Milan have three league wins under their belts. Sure, two were to relegation-level sides, but the Derby win meant more than a match. However, we lost our first Champions League match to Liverpool, and now we are away to Xabi Alonso's side who earned the nickname "Neverlusen" last year for their record breaking undefeated season. While Bayer Leverkusen have lost a match already this season, they still look much more solid than Milan, having played together as a team (and won) longer. And while Fonseca's prematch comments reflected his knowledge of this, he seemed way too overconfident. I don't sense that he truly understands what Milan's history is in this competition, so in addition to looking for the result, we will be in search of Milan's DNA.
This is not a stereotypical Italian defense, they need to find that Milan DNA.
Xabi Alonso's success at Leverkusen is impressive. He was hired in October of 2022, when the club was in the relegation zone and ended that season with a respectable seventh place finish. Last year, however, his side broke Bundesliga and European competition records alike in their unbeaten streaks, being the first ever club to end the Bundesliga season undefeated. Bayer Leverkusen won their first ever Bundesliga title and also dethroned giants Bayern Münich after 11 straight titles. In fact, only Atalanta beat them in the Europa League Final. And while they have already lost to RB Leipzig early in the season, they dispatched with Feyenoord 4-0 in their opening Champions League match.
Xabi Alonso brought Leverkusen what no one else had done before, and he did it in record form.
This week, they are coming off of a 1-1 draw with Bayern Münich on Saturday. For that match, Alonso lined up a 3-4-2-1 with Hradecky; Tapsoba, Tah, Hincapié; Frimpong, Xhaka, Andrick, Grimaldo; Terrier, Wirtz; and Boniface. As of this writing, he has no players out injured from his Champions League squad. Jonathan Tah mentioned that his wife and her whole family are all Italian and Milanisti, so this match has special meaning for him. Win, and he sleeps on the couch. Lose, he lets his team down, but his marriage is okay. Life choices are difficult.
Fonseca, of course, is missing three players longterm in Florenzi, Bennacer, and Sportello, and Okafor is still in doubt due to fitness as well from his 23 man List A Champions League squad. Which one could argue leaves room for younger players, except he has not used the younger players as much as many would have hoped thus far. There is talk of rotating a few players, specifically Pavlović for Tomori and Loftus-Cheek for Morata. Other than that, perhaps he'll stop messing around with his starting 11 so much and lineup similarly to the Lecce match, giving the players a chance to develop that understanding they need for his defensive ideas.
Pavlović reportedly could play from the start.
In addition to Fonseca being overconfident, he got his feelings hurt by Xabi Alonso's generalization about Italian teams and how they "defend very well." (Who's going to tell him?) Fonseca is so hell-bent on turning this Milan into his team, with his identity, that he is forgetting the legacy of the 125 year history of this club. For me, he has still not cemented his role as manager this season, and this match could definitely lay that truth bare. So, as Milan travel to Germany for the second Champions League match in the League Phase, they will be in search of all three points, yet still some humility for Fonseca as we also search for Milan's DNA.
