Milan-Juventus Preview: Enough

Everyone is sick of Juventus winning. I think maybe even Juventus fans are sick of winning, because they don’t even remember how to celebrate anymore. Forget alleged doping scandals, forget referee conspiracies, forget the ridiculous misconceptions about Calciopoli. Milan have had more than our fair share of bad luck with ref calls when we face Juventus. It’s time to dominate, to win this fair and square, no matter what the ref does on Tuesday. Enough.

We're coming to take what is rightfully ours: victory

While celebrating a glory hunter stealing a record from a real legend, Cristiano Ronaldo finally scored a free kick again on Saturday in the Derby della Mole after 42 failed attempts. That’s… world class? Whatever. Juventus dismantled Torino 4-1, with La Granata gifting them an own goal as they succumbed.

If at first you don't succeed, try 42 more times

For that match, Sarri lined up Buffon; Cuadrado, de Ligt, Bonucci, Danilo; Bentancur, Pjanic, Rabiot; Bernardeschi, Dybala, and Ronaldo. In a rare stroke of potential good luck for Milan, Dybala and de Ligt will both be suspended for this match due to card accumulation. Juve also lost Demiral to injury, and should still be missing Khedira, Alex Sandro, and our old pal De Sciglio to injury. Even for a €294m per year squad, that is a lot of missing pieces.

Buffon: stealing things from Milan since 2012

Pioli is still missing Duarte, Musacchio, and Castillejo to injury. Calhanoglu returned to training today and should be available for this match. We saw that Saelemaekers can fill in for Castillejo, but Calhanoglu is not as easily replaced, so hopefully he is available to start.

Still, this is the team that held Juve to a nil-nil draw in our Coppa Italia semifinal second leg, although we played most of the game on ten men. And while Juventus are in better form now than a few weeks ago, they also may not have a ref like Valeri to gift them a dubious penalty like he did in the first leg to send them through. Enough.

Hoping to have Calhanoglu fit

Milan fans have had enough of the refs gifting Juventus penalties. It doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theory to be really, really old. Goal Line Technology exists in Italy because Tagliavento couldn’t tell the difference between the goal line and Buffon’s entire arm length past it. I could list the many, many other refereeing discrepancies, most of which were confirmed as errors by the AIA after the fact, but there is not room here. Enough.

This Milan want Europa League. This Milan have quality, including the best player in the world, Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Other players may try to copy his ponytail, but it would never take him 42 attempts to score a free kick. He is a god of scoring goals from anywhere, anytime, and in any position. He made the mistake of playing for Juve once, but now he is coming back to haunt them. Again. With a few good friends.

The origins of awesomeness

For the sake of all of Serie A and fans everywhere, this game needs to go to Milan. People need to know that Juventus don’t own the refs, they don’t cheat, and they don’t steal. They can lose games, too.  It’s time that Milan show the world that. And hopefully make Juve fans cry in the process. Enough.

This post inspired by the music of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”

Serie A Week 31

Milan vs. Juventus

Tuesday, July 7 • 21:45 CEST (3:45pm EDT)

This match can be streamed LIVE on ESPN+ in the U.S.