Croatian striker Ante Rebic (r) opens the scoring for AC Milan in the Serie A match in Bologna, January 30, 2021 / AFP
Milan, despite a penalty missed by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, relaunched in Bologna (2-1) to defend his first place and keep his distance from Juventus, on the podium after his solid victory over Sampdoria (2-0) at Genoa, Saturday during the 20th day of Serie A.
Leaders with provisionally five points ahead of Inter Milan (2nd), which hosts Benevento in the evening, the Rossoneri have dispelled doubts after the setbacks against Atalanta Bergamo (0-3) in the league and then Inter Milan ( 1-2) in the Italian Cup.
In the absence of the role he loves as a providential scorer, “Ibra” made himself a model team-mate four days after his tense face to face against Romelu Lukaku and his exclusion in the derby.
The Swede, who apologized to his partners for leaving them to ten, missed a penalty in the first period, his fourth of the season in all competitions. Fortunately for him, Ante Rebic followed well to take back the ball pushed back by the Bolognese goalkeeper Lukasz Skorupski (26th).
When he got a new penalty in the second half, on a hand from the neo-Bolognese (and ex-Lille) Adama Soumaoro, the Swede left the sentence to Franck Kessié who did not miss the target (55th).
“It is Ibra who decides if he shoots it or not, on the second, he left the ball to me,” said the Ivorian. “Today, we raised our heads, that was the most important”.
If Skorupski multiplied the parries in front of Ibrahimovic and the Milanese attackers, his opposite Gianluigi Donnarumma also had to work on several occasions, in particular at 1-0 in front of Nicola Sansone (39th) then Nicolas Dominguez (43rd).
– “Positive January” for Juve –
And after the reduction of the score at the end of the match by the joker Andrea Poli (81st), the young Italian international goalkeeper again pulled out all the stops ahead of Roberto Soriano (82nd). Leaving Bologna in bad shape (13th, only one victory in the last eleven matches) and his coach Sinisa Mihajlovic annoyed: “We did not deserve to lose. With Ibra, we would have won 3-0 ”.
Portuguese Juventus striker Cristiano Ronaldo (r) grapples with Gambian Sampdoria defender Omar Colley in the Serie A match in Genoa on January 30, 2021 / AFP
In Genoa, Juventus has not mastered everything either but has shown itself to be applied if not brilliant.
In the pouring rain, the Bianconeri – in orange jerseys – quickly took the lead thanks to the opening scoring of Federico Chiesa (20th) after a nice collective movement between Cristiano Ronaldo and Fernando Morata.
But for lack of having folded the match in the first half, they remained for a long time under the threat of an equalization of the players of Claudio Ranieri. It took all the vigilance of Turin defender Giorgio Chiellini (55th) and then goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny (58th) to deprive ex-Turinese Fabio Quagliarella of this pleasure on the eve of his 38th birthday.
The second goal ended up arriving, at the end of the match, on a counter roundly led by Juan Cuadrado and easily concluded by Aaron Ramsey (90 + 1e).
“It was important to show continuity. I think we had a strong match, even if we should have ended the match earlier, ”said captain Chiellini, satisfied with“ a very positive month of January, with only one misstep ”, against the ‘Inter (0-2).
The Bianconeri (39 pts), still seven lengths behind the leader Milan, take third place in the standings to Roma (37 pts), which will host Hellas Verona on Sunday, a priori still without Edin Dzeko, at odds with the coach Paulo Fonseca.
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