AC Milan righted the wrongs of their defeat at the weekend in Hungary as they put Austrian Bundesliga side Wolfsberger AC to the sword, beating the 5-0 in Wednesday night’s friendly.
2022 Club Friendlies
0-5
Stefano Pioli decided to field quite a strong starting line-up for the game to round off the preseason camp in Austria, with a first choice rearguard of Mike Maignan, Davide Calabria, Pierre Kalulu, Fikayo Tomori and Theo Hernandez joined by the likes of Ismael Bennacer, Rafael Leao, Yacine Adli and Ante Rebic.
Milan started the game far better than their 3-2 defeat against ZTE at the weekend during which they were three goals down after 26 minutes, and hand a couple of early chances.
The first came when Leao fed Theo Hernandez near the byline and his low cross was almost diverted behind for an own-goal, and then a block looked like it had denied Leao inside the box, but the flag was up anyway as Adli was offside in the build-up.
It was all Milan in the opening 25 minutes and Leao was inches away from making it 1-0 with a low whipping shot from a narrow angle that just evaded the far post.
The Rossoneri had a couple of penalty shouts waved away; the first when Adli went down under pressure from the defender and the second when Theo Hernandez took a tumble, but in both cases they would have been harsh spot kicks.
The breakthrough came in the 39th minute when a ball in behind the defence by Calabria was taken down by a lovely soft touch from Leao, who settled himself well and dinked the ball over the goalkeeper.
Two minutes later it was 2-0, with Rebic this time scoring. It looked as though an attack had fizzled out, but the ball was recovered by Calabria and worked over to Adli in behind on the right, who fizzed in a perfect low cross that the Croatian tucked in at the far post.
The only change at the break saw Junior Messias come on for Leao, and Milan added two more goals before the hour. The first came from Messias in the 57th minute as a brilliant surge from Theo saw him get to what some might consider a lost ball, then he squared across the six-yard box where the Brazilian was waiting for a tap-in.
It was 4-0 minutes later as Saelemaekers had a shot blocked on the line by Baumgartner that fells into the path of Adli, who tucked into a virtually empty net to get the goal he richly deserved for his performance.
Mass changes followed from Pioli in the 62nd minute as Lazetic, Brahim, Bakayoko, Ballo-Toure, Tonali, Gabbia, Florenzi and Mirante came on.
Four minutes after that, Milan got a fifth goal. Two substitutes combined as a wonderful ball in from Fode Ballo-Toure found the head of Mattia Gabbia and the centre-back – who had the armband on – bulleted a header home from close range.
Two more substitutions came in the final 15 minutes as Gala and Coubis came on for Saelemaekers and Kalulu.
Bar a late pitch invasion there would be no more action as both sides played out the remainder of the game with the result and the magnitude of the scoreline a mere formality.
Line-ups
Wolfsberger AC XI: M. Leitgeb, M. Novak, N. Vergos, J. Scherzer, D. Baumgartner, L. Lochoshvili, D. Vizinger, L. Gütlbauer, E. Omic, Augustine Boakye, Nikolas Veratschnig
Subs: S. Piesinger, K. Kerschbaumer, T. Röcher, H. Bonmann, D. Gugganig, T. Baribo, T. Ballo, M. Anzolin, M. Taferner, F. Tauchhammer, R. Schifferl, D. Skubl, A. Jasic, P. Müller
Milan XI: Rebic, Maignan, Krunic, Calabria, Tomori, Bennacer, Theo, Y. Adli, Leao, A. Saelemaekers, Kalulu
Subs: Mirante, Tatarusanu, Bakayoko, Florenzi, F.Toure, Gabbia, Brahim, Junior Messias, Tonali, Brescianini, M. Lazetić, Andrei Coubis, Antonio Gala