Roma missed out on a statement victory on matchday 22 of Serie A – and had only themselves and Milan’s outstanding goalkeeper Maignan to blame. At least the Giallorossi came back from a sudden 0-1 deficit.
After a hard-fought 2-0 win against VfB Stuttgart on matchday 7 of the Europa League, Roma coach Gian Piero Gasperini must have been satisfied with his players’ performance in the first 45 minutes of the Serie A top match against AC Milan.
Except for one thing: converting chances. From the start, the Giallorossi dominated their guests from Lombardy at will, putting the Rossoneri on the back foot and creating chance after chance.
Maignan is the rock in Roma’s defense
But new signing Malen, who scored in his first game a week ago, after just a few seconds, former Gladbach player Koné in the 8th minute, former Dortmund player Malen again (19th and 33rd) and Soulé (43rd) all failed either through their own mistakes or thanks to the brilliant AC spoilsport Maignan.
Just before the break, the Milan goalkeeper proved himself to be a wizard with a magnificent reflex save from Celik’s close-range shot.
He also proved to be the guarantor who kept his team, which had been completely disappointing up to that point, in the game here at the Stadio Olimpico after their recent 1-0 win against Lecce, with DFB striker Füllkrug, who was initially on the bench again this time, as the match winner.
Modric finds de Winter
And at the same time, he ensured that this game virtually started afresh after the restart. In fact, the visitors from Lombardy immediately improved, made the game more balanced and created their first good chance of this Serie A Sunday evening through Rabiot. However, AS keeper Svilar made a clean save in the 50th minute.
What followed was what many critical Roma fans might have expected after the Giallorossi’s profusion of chances – Milan actually turned the game on its head. After a short AC corner and a cross from Modric, de Winter rose highest in the center and scored to the right of the post for the Rossoneri’s celebrated 1-0 lead (62′).
Inter rubs its hands together
However, Milan was unable to build on this lead, even with the introduction of Pulisic and Füllkrug (replacing the weak Nkunku and Rafael Leao). On the contrary: after a clear handball by Bartesaghi, a penalty was awarded, which substitute Lorenzo Pellegrini, a native of Rome, confidently converted into the left corner in the absence of expert Dybala (who had already been taken off the field) (74′).
That was all there was to it, with both sides playing cautiously in the closing stages. The score remained 1-1, which didn’t particularly help either side: Roma jumped back to fourth place, but felt the heat from Juventus (3-0 against champions Napoli) and Como (6-0 against Torino). Meanwhile, Milan had to let rivals Inter (five points ahead after a 6-2 win against Pisa) pull away at the top.