Welcome back! This is the second part of our very own special “AC Milan Women’s team in focus”. As you can read here, in the first part we addressed some concerning points in our defense, such as the set-piece emergency and, to make this one a bit more joyful to read, let’s forget about conceding and concentrate on scoring.
For starters, a warning for you, football geeks: some time ago, we did an analysis highlighting how and from where the rossonere usually score. This time, let’s take a look at who scores and when do they score.
The AC Milan goal machine
Up to this point on this season, considering Serie A, Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Italiana, the AC Milan Women’s team scored 37 times, including here 1 own goal in the Coppa Italia group stage match against Orobica. There are 29 goals in the league, 7 goals in the Coppa Italia and 1 goal in the Supercoppa. As mentioned before, Giacinti (15 goals) and Dowie (8 goals) are responsible for 62% of those goals, and make no mistake, this firepower upfront and the attacking players being accountable for most of the goals is a notorious characteristic for the rossonere.
In the 2018/2019 season, under Carolina Morace, the AC Milan Women’s team scored 61 goals between Serie A and Coppa Italia (excluding 4 own goals) and Daniela Sabatino (20 goals) and Valentina Giacinti (22 goals) were responsible for 72% of them. In the following season, brought to a complete halt due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the rossonere registered 39 goals (excluding 1 own goal) and once again, strikers Giacinti (9), Thorsvaldottir (5) and Salvatori Rinaldi (4) did most of the job, this time with a little help from the other strikers Miriam Longo (1), Lady Andrade (1) and Sara Tamborini (1).
Considering all 3 seasons, not couting own goals, the AC Milan Women’s team has scored, up to now, 131 goals and the forwards are responsible for more than 65% (86) of those. Note that Valentina Giacinti is the most prolific striker of the AC Milan Women’s team, with 46 goals to her name until now.
Timeline of the rossoneri goals:
Before we go on, let us break down this part for you. We took the regular 45 minutes of each half of the game and divided them into 6 time segments (0 to 10, 11 to 20, 21 to 30, 31 to 40, 41 to 45 and injury time and the second half following the same principle, 45 to 50, 51 to 60, 61 to 70, 71 to 80, 81 to 90 and injury time).
With that in mind, from those said 36 goals scored, 5 of them came in the first time segment, 4 in the second time segment and 6 in the third time segment, which means that Milan tend to score right after the kick off or between the 21st and 30th minute of the game.
After half-time break, things change a bit, as they scored 6 times in the second time segment, 4 times in the third time segment and 3 times in extra time.
Don’t you worry, football geeks, here’s a table with that data, collected from FIGC and AC Milan official website:
Goal Timeline Analysis |
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0 to 10' | 5 | 45' to 50' | 1 |
11' to 20' | 4 | 51' to 60' | 6 |
21' to 30' | 6 | 61' to 70' | 4 |
31' to 40' | 1 | 71' to 80' | 2 |
41' to 45' | 2 | 81' to 90' | 2 |
Injury time | - | Injury time | 3 |
Goals scored so far (excluding owngoals) | 36 |
Conclusion:
Make no mistake, the rossonere have the best defense, but our attack, especially the forwards, does not leave anything to desire and they tend to hit the opposition early on the game or in stoppage time. Although, as we said before, it wouldn’t hurt if the midfielders find the back of the net more often.
Image credits: acmilan.com