After an underwhelming debut in Turin on Sunday, many people, including some in the media, had already labelled Diego Moreira as “not good enough for Milan”, “a flop”, “€50 million wasted”, and so on. It is true that his debut may have left those who had been following him for some time feeling disappointed. He did not shine on the right flank, but let’s not forget that he was playing away to Juventus, against a difficult opponent, and for 61 minutes he did not really put a foot wrong: he did his job without any major mistakes.
Football is a strange game, writes Milannews.it, because just one week later, after his brace against Lazio last night, Moreira suddenly seems to have become the best player in the world. Let’s keep calm and keep our feet on the ground: Moreira is neither a flop nor the best player in the world.
Last night, after a disastrous first half from Estupiñán, Amorim threw Moreira into the mix at half-time, deploying him on the left and getting the decision completely right. He changed the game, scoring two beautiful goals and causing Lazio plenty of problems, as relayed via Milannews.it
Yes, he played on the left flank, where he featured more often last season. Ultimately, it is always up to Amorim to decide where to deploy his players, but in these first two matches, Moreira has performed better on the left: a small piece of advice for the Portuguese coach.
Moreira’s brace, scored at the age of 22 years and 37 days, made him the youngest Rossoneri player to score a brace as a substitute in Serie A since the 2004/05 season.
Looking through Moreira’s numbers from last night, we can see that in his 50 minutes on the pitch, including stoppage time, the player not only won the MVP award but also had three shots on target, a match-high alongside Mattia Zaccagni, scoring twice and creating a further goalscoring opportunity.
He completed 96% of his passes, including 13 successful forward passes out of 27 attempted in total, as well as making three recoveries. It was an 8/10 performance.
Now comes the need to confirm what we have already seen, starting on Wednesday in the Europa League against Benfica at San Siro, followed by Sunday evening’s Serie A clash with Lecce, before the long international break.
One thing is certain: if he continues like this, the spot on the left appears to have only one owner.
