Week 8: Genoa - Milan October 7 2023 20:45

[Arildonardo]

At least we got the 3 points.

[Santino]

Oh my heart....But why the ref stoped Rafa, the goal was empty.
Jovic was on the field?

[Demonbanana]

Worse game for 85mins , typical Pioli disaster-class.
Maybe the best 15 minutes to end a match I've seen, OG what a save give him golden gloves!
Ref stopping play to give red card to their GK when we broke was garbage.

No, Mike or Theo for Jube.

[honsano]

But why the ref stoped Rafa, the goal was empty.

Yup.

[Demonbanana]

Top of the table!

[honsano]

I agree with VAR here.

Fair. Agree to disagree. 

Agree to agree that Giroud should never be GK again.

[Zio Fester]

Crazy end to to the match.

Overall was a v poor game but managed to squeeze out a win. All the excitement was 85mins+ before that was like watching paint dry.

Pioli has made this an ugly and boring team to watch. Lots of aimless possession that creates very little clear chances. Team appears to have very little discipline either as get numerous bookings every match.

[Beppe]

What an ending of the game that was!
3pts and this is very good for the morale. Important 3pts!

[ACM2023]

From the slo-mo, Maignan's knee got to the opponent's chest first before his head connected with the ball. It was certainly harsh but I think it was the right call. When Manchester United played (I forgot their opponent) Onana had a similar but worse foul. He completely missed the ball but hit the opponent player's head, and after checking VAR, the referee still decided not to give a penalty and red card probably due to pressure (there was also only a few minutes left and Manchester United was only leading by one goal as well).

The stupid mistake by the referee was to stop the play when Leao would have scored the second goal. The second yellow can still be shown later but we were denied a clear chance to score by the referee. The issue was that the referee probably was under a lot of stress and inexperienced. He may even feel sorry for our red card, so he may think that he was doing us a favor with leveling the numbers of players (he would have to do that anyway) and slowing down the game tempo. In a normal situation when Milan had a regular goalkeeper, I suppose that we wouldn't mind the game being further slowed down and Genoa, as desperately as they were, may not be able to score the equalizer. But Genoa just hit the bar and there were still a few added minutes so they literally could score anytime. The red card didn't help us that much, but having another goal would have for sure sealed the victory. The remaining part of the game proved it. Genoa still threatened our goal, and thankfully Giroud was able to pull off some miracle.

A few more notes:

1. I am glad to see Bartesaghi given some minutes. That shows a lot of confidence that the coaches have in him subbing him in at such a critically late minute protecting such a slender lead. However, that did complicate everything when Maignan was sent off. I am afraid that Pioli may now become even more conservative and may never want to use 5 subs ever again. Also, I didn't pay attention to who were the two Milan defenders that were flanking the Genoa player when Maignan had to come out for that foul. [I read that one of them was Bartesaghi.] I feel that something should have been done by our defenders there.

2. I said that everyone was under stress can also be seen from Genoa goalkeeper's reaction. He was taking off his jersey and gloves when he was sent off. I suspected that Maignan's actions were still fresh in his mind, and he just subconsciously followed suit. But Genoa apparently still can send in a backup goalkeeper.

3. The last time that the referee tried to make up for us but ended up hurting us even more was when we played Spezia during our scudetto winning season. Messias' would-be winning goal was called off, then he extended the game for a few minutes (it is my speculation that he did it to allow us to score again) but Spezia somehow scored again.

4. Our games against Genoa were never short of drama, so many memorable ones. 28 years ago, our fan stabbed a Genoa supporter to death. I had no idea what happened in front of TV with game just postponed indefinitely (the commentators had no clue either during then); then we had some last-minute goals, from Andrea Silva to Alessio Romagnoli, and for sure today's game would have a place in history. Wow.

An end note: I am happy with 3 points and a clean sheet (could be the hardest-fought clean sheet ever), and will refuse to worry about Juventus game. That's now Pioli's problem.

[ACM2023]

Fair. Agree to disagree. 

Agree to agree that Giroud should never be GK again.

I hope that we would never need to enter this kind of situation ever again, but I honestly think that Giroud's performance was decent in those turbulent ending minutes. Of course, if the game were 10 minutes longer, we could be in trouble.

To me, that was admirable courage and leadership on pitch. I don't know if anybody else would step up with so much pressure. I didn't see any at that moment.