Let us explore some of the tactics behind the goals of the much anticipated Verona-Milan game.
Fatale Verona was something which was on the minds of Milan players when they came to the Bentegodi and history looked to have repeated itself when Verona took the lead in the 38th minute despite Milan dominating the match for a good part of the game
Verona play with two #10’s in their system. This allows them to find the space between the midfield and the defense. Caprari on this fatal occasion found space between the lines with Calabria reluctant to follow his marker.
This put him in a grave situation with Lazovic overlapping and creating a 2v1 on Calabria and the defender tried to call the bluff of Caprari and didn’t follow Lazovic. Kalulu tried to help Calabria out but by then it was too late.
Milan’s first goal came courtesy of a press by Kalulu, a forced error from Caprari. This helped Tomori to capitalize on the unorganized defense of Verona and slide a pass through to put Leao on a 1v1 with Gunther. You can already see Tudor screaming at his players to quickly get back into their positions
Faraoni could not help Gunther double team Leao and he wreaked havoc
For Milan’s 3rd goal a successful switch helped Florenzi find space on the right side.
With the midfield of Verona stretched it forced the Center Back, Sutalo to come out to challenge Florenzi essentially creating a 2v2 (messias being covered by Lazovic). However since Sutalo left space behind him, the quick one touch passing from Florenzi opened up the space and Florenzi whipped out a brilliant shot to score.
The average positional map pot game seems to suggest Milan played more of a 4-3-3. In this game Kessie sat back as the Defensive midfielder (#6) while Tonali pushed up as the (#8). Maybe a formation change next season ?
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