AC Milan 1-3 Fiorentina: 5 talking points from the match

At this stage of the season, one could hope AC Milan Women should be a team compact enough to delivery good performances against an always dangerous but not so much successful side such as Fiorentina, taking into consideration what was at stake. However, the Viola took the best of the rossonere and hammered them 1-3, raising the pressure for a good result from AC Milan on next weekend’s direct confrontation for next season’s Champions League spot against Sassuolo.

Here’s some thoughts on this game:

A questionable choice:

On an unexpected move, Ganz chose to field Christy Grimshaw instead of Yui Hasegawa from the start. The Scottish, who has her set of skills and qualities, offers little in terms of defensive work rate and passing accuracy and, by doing this change, Ganz directly affected the balance in midfield he put so much effort himself to find.

Poor performances from all the backline:

It’s unquestionable that Korenciova’s red card affect the game and tipped the scale on Fiorentina’s favor. Nevertheless, apart from Bergamaschi, the whole AC Milan backline had a bad game, especially Fusetti. They were often caught on one-on-one situations with speedsters Monnecchi and Baldi, often out of position – which, by the way, lead to Korenciova’s blunt mistake and consequent sent-off – and Daniela Sabatino found her way around them easily on a number of occasions, adding 2 assists to her name in Serie A.

Piazza is a suitable replacement for Korenciova:

Alessia Piazza, who has been the backup player for Korenciova since the 2018/2019 season, stepped into the field as Natasha Dowie was the obvious choice to make room for her. Piazza showed some skills with her feet and, more important, performed several good saves throughout the game, and that’s the good news since she will most likely be in the starting eleven next game against Sassuolo.

A great match from Fiorentina stars Schroffenegger and Sabatino:

Stefano Berardo warned and then, it happened. Viola’s goalie Kattia Schroffenegger had a superb outing against AC Milan, with at least 3 saves with a high-level difficulty, avoiding the rossonere to find her net stopping Fusetti and Jane long-range efforts and deviating, with the tip of her fingers, a Bergamaschi’s screamer. And then, came Daniela Sabatino, one of the most talented and clinical strikers in Italy. Their number 9 delivered a world-class performance against her former team, bagging a classy goal the break the deadlock and providing assist to both Baldi and Vigilucci.

Poor officiating by Grasso:

The referee Gianluca Grasso had a bad game, mad a number of poor decisions which affected the game. Korenciova’s red card might not be considered an error though a harsh interpretation of the games’ rule. While the AC Milan goalie did make a mistake and hit the adversary instead of looking for the ball, she was not the last player in the defense as Fusetti was close-by the action during the whole time and Monnecchi was far from having an open-goal opportunity as she was struck outside of the penalty area. Afterwards, the ref made another wrong call by awarding AC Milan a penalty due to a supposed handball by Breitner. The Fiorentina player kept both her arms close to her body during the whole action, not taking advantage or making her body unnaturally bigger, as said in the rules.

Don't Panic:

Though this was an extremely disappointing outcome, and performance as well, and the point advantage to sassuolo dropped to only 3, when it comes to securing Champions League football for next season everything is pretty much still up to the rossonere. Next weekend, against Sassuolo, the AC Milan Women could end up with a win or a draw that they mathematically make it to Champions League before the last Serie A round.

In case of a defeat by 2-nil tops, they must finish tied in points with Sassuolo in order to qualify for next season’s Champions League as the rossonere would have a superior goal difference (30 against 22 to date) and advantage on the head-to-head record over them (AC Milan won 2-nil on Serie A matchday 10).