Cesena FC 0, AC Milan 0: Mistaken Identity

I don’t know if Milan saw the black and white kits, heard ”Bianconeri” and assumed they were playing Juventus, so just gave up. Or maybe the guys thought Milan were supposed to be the ones who played in Serie D last season, but there was certainly some sort of mistaken identity. The team we know as Milan played more like you would expect Cesena, and Cesena made fools of Milan.

Gamechanger

I will give you that Cesena were clumsy and too frequent with their challenges. That is going to happen when you have players who don’t make in a year what the Milan players make in a week. But other than that, Milan played their very worst since Giampaolo took charge. Cesena easily disrupted play, dispossessed our players, and took advantage of errors. It was not pretty.

Milan players were easily frustrated, and with some of those tackles, it’s hard to blame them for that. But it’s not like they made up for it by outplaying their opponent, let alone actually scoring. In fact, even Cesena scored a goal in the 17th minute, but luckily for Milan’s pride, it was called off as offside, and I'm not 100 per cent sure if it was.

A sight for sore eyes

The one redeeming thing about this match is that after the half, Milan were slightly less dreadful than in the first half. In fact, with the introduction of Paquetá, our attack looked at least like a Serie B side’s attack instead of a Serie D side. Kessie increased that quality to at least a lower table Serie A side, it really is great that we could improve within a match instead of shrink and fade like we have so much over the past few years.

Duarte made his debut and got about 15 minutes, but that is likely to be forgotten amongst the carnage of hopes and dreams that this match created. Not even a five minute Daniel Maldini cameo could rescue those hopes and dreams.

Literally 15 minutes of fame

But all is not lost. It was a bad game. We all have bad days, and unfortunately, most of the team opted to have a bad day simultaneously. The playing style is still improved. The squad is still better than it was in June. Sure, we gorged ourselves on humble pie against a team with a fraction of the quality, but all is not lost. We can save the losing for Serie A. Or at least the 'all is lost' attitude. Save it for when it matters. This was simply a case of mistaken identity.

This post inspired by the music of The Bravery's "An Honest Mistake"

Our next match is

Serie A Week 1

Udinese vs. Milan

Sunday, August 25 • 18:00 CEST (12noon EDT)