Re: Milan v Atlético Madrid

by M99 Wed Feb 19, 2014 1:43 pm

We were the better team on the 1st half and would surely have been leading if it was not for Courtois having the Dino Zoff syndrome. Pleased with the performances of Abate, Rami, De Jong, Kaka, Taarabt, Poli and Balotelli. *bleep* Insua for injuring De Sciglio. Here's to a 2nd half where hopefully we will score goals.

by Cruijf Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:27 pm

Goodbye CL Crying or Very sad

by celikmilan Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:40 pm

Abate need to start learning how to play football and looking for a new club and Seedorf need to GTFO. He need to get the result and he is introducing the worst defender that we have instead of a attacker.

by •MilanDevil• Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:42 pm

Seedorf did extremely well in this match, we dismantled atletico tactically but we were unlucky with our finishing.

by M99 Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:42 pm

Soul crushing stuff. Painful. To lose is one thing but to lose like this smh. We missed so many chances and only have ourselves to blame. Can't believe the amount of times we got millimetres close to scoring. Now we truly have a mountain to climb with out horrid away form.

Oh and *bleep* Diego Posta.

by Kaladin Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:46 pm

Gutted about the result, proud of the performance up until around the 70th min.

This effing avatar ffs

by Ganso Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:57 pm

we didnt deserve it Mad

by Eivindo Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:58 pm

We played better than expected tbh, but we saw no fruits from the management of Seedorf, and it was perhaps no surprise that we didnt try the total voetball today, as it would have been suicide with our players:P

Bonera, oh God, how can a player like this be worthy of our beautiful shirt. I will have nightmares of how such a poor player ever played for our club. He is so small too, how the hell did he end up playing a CB with low pace, strength (I know he was somehow a talent when he was young, cant even immagine this tho, didnt see him play back in the day).

We need to find a new system of Balotelli, or we might as well sell him to Arsenal. His qualities with long range shooting and dribbling is completely useless in his current role, as we might as well have Peter Crouch up front right now. This reminds me of how we had Zlatan play for us near the end particularly, by dropping deep to make room for our midfielders and wingers, that way Nocerino and Boateng scored goals.

Seedorf do not want typical counter attacking football, he wants us to control games and score many goals, but that means a complete revamp of our midfield in particular, and no more signing of DMF, which has been a cheap dream solution for Milan for many years.

Signing young creative midfielders who can pass the ball? This is unheard of at Milan, and it would take balls to actually use them in a game lol. Good luck Seedorf, may you have more luck in the summer mercato than in passed years, and good luck in convincing Berlusconi about spending money.

Also, we better be planning something big, like that new stadium, or there is no point of continuing this "German" project any further, they actually have a system working with actual income from an own stadium.

by nichabr Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:00 pm

Great game bad result.

Balotelli was great along with Poli and Abate. Taarabt again being the football player equivalent of blue balls. Rami playing well with Bonera. Now with the introduction of SES maybe just maybe we can do work in Madrid.

by •MilanDevil• Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:04 pm

We missed Montolivo a lot in this match.

by M99 Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:08 pm

With our away form, I really don't see a victory in Spain.

by Kaladin Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:19 pm

Poli: "The penalty appeal? The referee said to me: "Are you crazy?"
There was contact. I would have hit the ball if I hadn't been touched."

by nichabr Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:22 pm

M99 wrote:With our away form, I really don't see a victory in Spain.

We got this
Milan v Atlético Madrid - Page 4 Image_10

Look into the flames.

by •MilanDevil• Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:22 pm

El Shaarawy wrote:Poli: "The penalty appeal? The referee said to me: "Are you crazy?"
There was contact. I would have hit the ball if I hadn't been touched."

That was a straight red as well. It was a very stupid decision by the ref.

by Kaladin Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:24 pm

Also, certain Atleti players got away with some really nasty challenges. No wonder half their team is booked.

by Arquitecto Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:59 pm

I wrote:90 minutes we unexpectedly put Atletico to the sword and dominate them from all departments, yet typical of Atleti in an away performance, Diego Costa takes advantage of a Bonera lapse in defence and capitalizes with a deft headerer-summing up Simeone's team. Rather meteoric considering Rami had Costa in his pocket all night and did not give him a sniff of the ball.

Our best performers were Andrea Poli who was a warrior all night and causing Insua all sorts of problems, along with his link-up. Kaka who was our best player in the first half in his creation and shots (one of them hitting the post) and Rami who by far was our MOTM.

Essien stepped it up to impressive levels in the 2nd half while Balotelli was quiet yet effective in all departments during the whole 90.

Taarabt was selfish yet dangerous with his passes all night.

Where we failed was Bonera lapsing into Bonera for Costa's headerer and Urby Emanuelsson knowing that he is untouchable under Seedorf, wasting numerous chances in attack and struggling to track back in his positional.

Our positives is that Seedorf finally has recognized to use wider threats in order to fuse our 4-2-3-1 semantic into proper order to which will actually have Kaka find it easier considering the cumbersome use of Robinho and a wide Honda had Seedorf making the same mistake that Wenger still does with Mezut Oezil.

Balotelli finally provided a movement outlet to which also helped Kaka and complimented our front 4 in perfect unison.

Our lack of clinical ability the bane of this tie as Calderon will be a completely different beast.

Atleti, unsurprisingly were also a very dirty team tonight as De Sciglio and Mario's injury just a testament to their unethical play in the whole 90. Cannot believe we did not earn a penalty for Poli or have someone sent off from Atleti given their rough course.

Absolutely sickening loss to stomach considering how well we played yet the missed chances and Bonera lapse had cost us.

Milan's biggest problem under Seedorf will not be the tactical approach as he shows enough promise as it is, yet the fatigued that is so incrementally incurred even before the 80th minute, to which has repeatedly caused us a drastic drop in our performance once it sets in.

My post from the GS.

The reason I hold little optimism for the 2nd is the fashion in how Atletico had us suffer our unlucky defeat. If you dominate a team for 80+ minutes and concede right in the end, it demoralizes your team beyond repair within a two-legged tie, especially when it is done in your own stadium.

Milan now do not possess any tangible factor that will motivate their cause beyond Atletico. The fact that our efforts were put in vain after the valiant performance, will be even worse in the fortress that is Vicente Calderón. Atletico simply are more dominant side with less caution within Madrid, and that does not necessarily spell a more open game considering their prowess in the Calderon.

-David Villa, a very important creative and tactical component to Atletico will be returning within the 2nd leg to support Costa.

-Insua, the poor and dirty LB that was played today will not return in the 2nd leg. Why? Filipe Luis. Did you forget about him?

-Montolivo will return (?) to which will aid the needed distribution that we lacked in the heart of the field yet will it prove enough? Especially considering how he plays in this pivot?

-De Sciglio and Balotelli potentially long-term injuries. Unconfirmed, as of now.

-Still no Stephan El Shaarawy.

-Atletico have now experienced Milan's game and their reactive nature will certainly cater to our style as the worst thing is there is little tactical way to usurp their own play as I cannot stress enough as to how tricky it is to play them.

-No tangible experience in the Vicente Calderon as its an unknown quanitity to our players bar Kaka and Adil Rami.

We're *bleep*.

by dostoevsky Wed Feb 19, 2014 4:03 pm

Montolivo is suspended for the second match as well I'm fairly certain Arq, the only reinforcements we'll have will be Muntari and possibly Robinho.

by Kaladin Wed Feb 19, 2014 4:04 pm

"Based on previous results in the European Cup/CL, teams that won 1-0 away in the first leg have a 89% chance of progressing."

Additionally, we haven't won an away game in CL knockouts in quite a while

Furthermore, we're against Spanish opposition, and we tend to crumble against the Spanish.

It'd be a wonder to get a goal in the 2nd leg let alone win, with Luis back it'd be near impossible.

by Cruijf Wed Feb 19, 2014 4:43 pm

Our performance is being incredibly overrated...

Good 30 minutes in the first half, everything else was just as mindbogglingly terrible as usual. We by no means dominated Atletico and did not have a sight of goal all second half. When the only player that has the potential to create an opening went off in Balo, it was just a matter of time.

I'm thoroughly disgusted with Atletico though, gave us two injuries and had a cynical foul-filled game throughout.

by Rossoneri Ninja Thu Feb 20, 2014 1:21 am

Don't think Atletico were physical to the point of it being called thuggery, they played with allot of grit. Our lack of fitness was the telling factor, we couldn't maintain the pressure we were exerting on Atletico for long, also we have a tendency to lose focus and our shape as the match wares on.

Didn't think the performance was as good as people are making it out to be, with regards to the lvl at which our competitors are playing. We just haven't had many games were we try to play at a high pace for the whole duration of the match. There were some strong individual performances, but not enough quality at the end of the day.

The most depressing of all of this imo was that Atletico didn't even need to play well to beat us at home.

by Kaladin Fri Feb 21, 2014 4:00 am

I'm not going to touch on many individual performances, i'm sure everyone has seen the match. I'm just going to be brief in some of the positives and negatives.

Despite what many people are saying, i think we had one of the best first halves under Seedorf. One of the major issues that many brought up here was fitness, and i agree. This makes me recall on Seedrof's comment:

“I’ve seen the statistics and we’re in line with the other teams in terms of how much we’re running. But it’s not just a question of how much you run, but how well you run. The team has to grow under all points of view, even athletically. I want to respect Allegri and not pass the blame to him. When you’re running to catch up, you struggle more mentally and physically. At the end of the 2007 season we were really exhausted. We have work to do both mentally and physically”

Ironically, we are the team that scores the most goals in the last 15 mins of play in Serie A. I think the issue was that our team was a bit stagnant over the last few seasons. Seedorf's trying to change that by making everyone involved in all phases of play. You see Taarabt tracking back like a mofo, Rami advancing into the opposition's half. These all are traits that Seedorf is trying to instill imo.

Despite what the formation depicted, i think we almost mirrored Atleti's formation, 2 banks of four and 2 upfront. Poli and Taarabt proved to be extremely vital in contributing not just in attack but in defense too. More so, i thought the team was going to have a hard time breaking this organised side, but in fact we broke through a couple of times i the first half.

Not one of our proudest games, but signs of improvement are showing. Slowly, but surely.

by Guest Sun Feb 23, 2014 2:33 pm

Rossoneri Ninja wrote:Don't think Atletico were physical to the point of it being called thuggery, they played with allot of grit. Our lack of fitness was the telling factor, we couldn't maintain the pressure we were exerting on Atletico for long, also we have a tendency to lose focus and our shape as the match wares on.

Didn't think the performance was as good as people are making it out to be, with regards to the lvl at which our competitors are playing. We just haven't had many games were we try to play at a high pace for the whole duration of the match. There were some strong individual performances, but not enough quality at the end of the day.

The most depressing of all of this imo was that Atletico didn't even need to play well to beat us at home.

well, the ball was defected to taarabt then diego costa headed in. but in our case, we hit post twice, kaka balotelli taarabt pazzini and even rami had chances. most importantly we created chances but we couldnt convert. if milan can keep their composure, and play with concentration and confidence, I am convinced milan will win at spain. i see no reason why, lately milan has been playing good football.

defensively we will be suspect for sure there too, but Milan need to capitalize on chances.

by Guest Sun Feb 23, 2014 2:35 pm

well we will have to win, so i think our guys mentality would be to go out there feeling we have got nothing to loose. had we scored 2 goals at home, i might have felt we would have played a very conservative role at spain

by M99 Mon Mar 10, 2014 8:49 am

2nd leg is nearly here fellas.

by M99 Mon Mar 10, 2014 9:04 am

Adel Taarabt has insisted that AC Milan do not fear Atletico Madrid ahead of the second leg of their Champions League last-16 tie in Spain on Tuesday.

The Serie A outfit have it all to do at the Vicente Calderon after Diego Costa's late strike at San Siro gave Atletico a crucial advantage heading into the return leg, but Taarabt can see no reason why Milan cannot go and produce the result they need to reach the quarter-finals of the competition.

"We should have won at San Siro. It could have been 2-0 in our favour, but we were unlucky," he told the club's official television channel.

"On Tuesday we've got no fear about taking on Atletico Madrid.

"They're a strong side and they're second in the Spanish league, but the Champions League is a different competition.

"At San Siro we showed that we can dominate, I see no reason why we can't do the same over there in Madrid."

by uzonero Tue Mar 11, 2014 2:16 am

We got this
Atletico 1-3 Milan
Impossible is nothing
#IBelieve

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