Team news: Dinamo Zagreb had a full squad at their disposal, while Milan had to do without Malick Thiaw, Aster Vranckx, Yacine Adli, Tiémoué Bakayoko and Zlatan Ibrahimović who were out of the Champions League list as well as without Mike Maignan, Antonio Mirante, Davide Calabria, Sergiño Dest, Alessandro Florenzi and Alexis Saelemaekers. Kickoff time for Matchday 5 of the Champions League Group Stage was 21:00 CET at Stadion Maksimir.
Goals: Gabbia (39′), Leão (49′), Giroud (59′ pk), Ljubičić (69′ own goal)
GNK Dinamo Zagreb (3-5-2) – Ante Čačić
Dominik Livaković; Stefan Ristovski (58′ Dario Špikić), Josip Šutalo, Dino Perić; Sadegh Moharrami, Luka Ivanušec, Josip Mišić (75′ Marko Bulat), Arijan Ademi (57′ Martin Baturina), Robert Ljubičić; Bruno Petković (57′ Josip Drmić), Mislav Oršić (75′ Petar Bočkaj).
Unused: Zagorac; Lauritsen, Štefulj, Théophile-Catherine; Marin; Emreli, Menalo.
AC Milan (4-2-3-1) – Stefano Pioli
Ciprian Tătăruşanu; Pierre Kalulu, Simon Kjær, Matteo Gabbia, Theo Hernández (70′ Fodé Ballo-Touré); Ismaël Bennacer (70′ Tommaso Pobega), Sandro Tonali; Ante Rebić, Charles De Ketelaere (52′ Rade Krunić), Rafael Leão (70′ Junior Messias); Olivier Giroud (80′ Divock Origi).
Unused: Jungdal, Nava; Coubis; Díaz; Origi.
Referee: Szymon Marciniak (POL).
I like this lineup. Rebic on the right is better than Messias even if it’s not his natural place. Kalulu and Theo must use their speed to cover for Gabbia and Kaer lack of pace
Great to see Rebic on the RW!!!
Who thought that idea would take 3 years
Hopefully, CDK will do something today. I can’t wait for him to perform..he is a talented player .
Lets bag 3 point boys. FORZZZAAA MILAN
first brahim, and now rebic as rw. finally guardioli has come to his senses and channeled his inner milan10ian. good for him
Maybe rebic got smart and figured RW is the way to play every game. He’s miles ahead of Messias and the saladman. Hope they all do well, we need 3 points
We need 3 points, no excuses!!
We are only really missing our right back and goalkeeper now and given we have Kalulu, goal keeper is our main weak link. Otherwise our main players are fit
So we need to show up tonight at CL standard
Salzburg gave Chelsea a good game tonight losing 2-1 and are 3-2 on aggregate with Chelsea, a lot better than our 5-0. They play in bloody Austria!!!
Come on guys show Europe what we can do!!!
Hip hip hurray! No krunic in the lineup, we can win this boys
Strangely thou the team controlled the game better after he came in for De Ketelaere. Well not that Krunic has done something. Zagreb just naturally started giving up after going 2 down and Krunic benefited lol. But Pioli might think that it was all Krunics doing! I want Maldini forcefully selling his boy in January to have peace of mind. Nice win away at a difficult ground. Now like the coach said ,we must intend to beat Salzburg and play like so. Salzburg should see from the get go that they are the ones to defend. Forza Milan!!
Their whole league has less market value than our team we must win this no excuses
Milan needs to show urgency and kill this game off in the first half! We can’t afford to let them dictate the pace of the game
CDK is going to be great player i like his vision just give him time. He is young lad who had naver played in serie a before. And playing for ACM is a big pressure
Tonali was also not perfect first year
For the first 35min rebic has been not playing well. A lot of misplaced passes, missed chances
I can’t believe how bad he has been. Hes either amazingly good or amazingly bad
Hehe yes he is shit or perfect. I think he is great when he comes from the bench
I have never been in support of playing Rebic out of position. First of all, Rebic is not the very skillful player that can beat opponents in 1on1 situations. Secondly, he is not a good crosser even in his favourite right wing. Messias might be awful but! He and Alexis are better option in that right wing compared to Rebic. Brahma and CDK will even do better in that position.
Brahim*
Not sure i agree with you man. I think Rebic, even out of position is better (or strikes more fear to opponents) than Messias or Alexis. The reality is, we need a good RW but with Messias or Saladman opponents just clog the left knowing we cant beat them on the right wing.
Rebic is well capable of dribbling and beating his man. He can play anywhere across the front line.
The issue is when hes on form he is brilliant, that has just been too infrequent.
Great to have Brahim on form again. Hopefully one day we will have all our attackers playing well together.
Think CDK shud get some minutes in Serie A in the next rounds against poorer teams. He shouldn’t be starting important matches at the moment until his confidence picks up
U great pass by Tonali and nice goal by Gabia
That diving header was beautiful by Gabbia. Tonali made a great assist.
Rebic really looking lively on the right but there is some questionable decision making on his side. We could have been 2 or 3 goals up. Gabbia is man of the match so far. A great save earlier and a goal
Hope we can get a win…currently, 0-1 Milan leads….Liberia is following.
Awful performance by milan. Zagreb are more organised and keep the ball better.
Our midfield is empty, this system of pushing tonali forward and leaving litttle bennacer to hold the line does not work, monza and now Zagreb, walk right through.
Well done Gabbia, always committed! Cleared off the goal line and scored, a true rossonero!!
We need to seriously pick up our performance in the second half
Now that second half is what i call a CL performance. Bravo!
Gabbia was great, he really changed the game clearing the ball off the line and then scoring. Hes amazing how he performs so well with such few opportunities
Also Tonali has really improved his delivery from set pieces, which was really needed
The good thing is we are playing at home against RB
Rebic looking very lively but decision making has been poor. (Still think he’s doing better than Messias ) CDK is a tad slow on the final decision. One extra second and he’d had a goal and an assist. But that’s UCL for ya, u don’t get the extra second to think.
Ok cool 3 : 0 it is over
Link to watch the match please
Hehe Leao with his body language and facial expression even amid full sprint looks so nonshalant
Looking good,looking good huh, huh
Well done boys. 3 ponts in the bag. Well done ragazzi.
Good game lads… I think I might have just been wrong about Origi all this while. His pace and strength is definitely a huge plus for this team. And regardless of that penalty, Giroud was just awful. Rebic as awful as he was, I think he’s still our best chance of getting a lot productive on that right wing.
Finally, I hope Pioli realizes that Krunic just isn’t good.
Cant believe how many chances Giroud missed. He could have had 6!
Rebic was really bad but as u say probably our best option on rw. Just a bad day for those guys, hopefully better next game
I must add! CDK needs to keep his head down ffs! It’s not as if he’s been put in an awful lot of pressure by the team or fans. Going for personal glory when your team is just leading by a goal to nil in a VERY IMPORTANT match is absolutely ludicrous.
Just a draw in Milan will save the day all thanks to Chelsea and good a thing we won in Zagreb comfortable good one boys
Special shout out to Tata. He doesn’t get a lot of love but He’s definitely been doing well for us.
Finally, I hope Pioli finally saw how technically daft Krunic really is. That miss and his misplaced passes should make him sit on the bench for a minute. The goal pobega scored that was cancelled was harder to score for a midfielder than the east one Krunic got. That guy has no business being in this team if we’re serious about competing in Italy and Europe in general.
Let us allow the Coach to do his job…hope we can win this one, Liberia is following.