In the end Milan takes three points. But with Pisa he is forced to work hard to try to stay in Inter’s wake and continue to believe in the Scudetto race. The Rossoneri clung to a personal solution from Modric in the final to break the resistance of bottom-ranked Pisa, tonight on the pitch with a limited edition total black kit (fourth kit of the season) which with this defeat sees their hopes of survival further reduced, although not deserving.
Allegri chooses the rotations, in view of the three matches in a week (the recovery against Como on Wednesday and Parma on Sunday), while for the home debut the new PIsa coach, Oscar Hiljemark, has to give up the goalkeepers due to injury and field the third Nicolas (zero minutes until tonight) bringing the very young Guizzo, not yet seventeen, on the bench.
Milan instead gives up on Leao, Pulisic and Fulkrug, focusing on Loftus-Cheek and Nkunku. For half an hour nothing happens: in fact it is Pisa who scares the Rossoneri in the 29th minute with a through pass into the area that unmarks Stojlkovic: he saves Maignan on the way out. Ten minutes later, however, Milan came through with their first truly dangerous action: Athekame from the right put a cross into the center which surprised the Pisa defense and Loftus-Cheek comfortably headed home. The first half offers no other emotions. In the second half Milan starts strongly and immediately finds the second goal with Rabiot, but Fabbri rightly cancels it due to a previous handball by Fulkrug, who has just come off the bench in place of an evanescent Nkunku.
However, it was the appetizer of an evening to forget for the German striker, who nine minutes later appeared on the spot to kick the penalty earned by Pavlovic, but his shot chipped the base of the post to the right of Nicolas and went out. From that moment the lights go out in Milan and the center forward is no longer seen until the end when Allegri removes him, with the team left with 10 men in the 90th minute due to the expulsion of Rabiot who was booked shortly before for a foul and then sent off for the protests: De Winter came in to block the defence. In the 62nd minute Athekame tried from the edge but his right-footed volley was deflected by the Pisan goalkeeper.
Then only Pisa was not very aggressive, but willing in attack so much so that in the 70th minute they grabbed a deserved equalizer with Loyola. Allegri had already sensed the danger and was about to revolutionize the team. Having collected the draw, Fofana and Loftus-Cheek are removed for Ricci and Leao respectively. Then Pulisic also comes in for Athekame. In the 80th minute Fulkrug wasted an assist from Ricci in front of goal and in the end a golden ball play from Modric was needed to resolve a match that risked canceling out any desire for a record: the midfielder wedges the ball at his feet in the Pisa area, “piercing” the defense and with a nice right-footed shot to the corner of the far post he scores the match point.
Pisa tries to react, pouring forward but without creating any particular apprehension for the AC Milan rearguard. The final worries for Allegri are the double yellow in a few seconds for Rabiot who first gets himself booked for knocking down an opposing attacker and then gets himself sent off for protesting.
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