Some things are more important than football, and just three weeks ago, we were reminded of that in the worst possible way. Liverpool lost Diogo Jota and his brother very suddenly in a tragic accident. Just ten days after his wedding, less than a month after lifting the Nations League trophy with his Portugal team, and six weeks after lifting the Premier League trophy with Liverpool. Milan have a painfully historic rivalry with Liverpool in the Champions League, but that gets set aside at a time like this, when emotions are still very, very raw. Normally, this match in Hong Kong would be just another preseason friendly, but it is their first international match since losing Diogo and his brother. So Saturday will be about respecting Liverpool, remembering Diogo.
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| Gone, but not forgotten. |
This will be a very emotional match, especially for a friendly. Whatever with conditioning and preparing for the season, Diogo was expected to report for training with the rest of the team July 7th. Instead, his passing on July 3rd delayed the beginning of preseason preparations, and the lack of his presence must still weigh incredibly heavy with his teammates. On Sunday, July 13th, they played a friendly away to Preston North End, and Preston's captain laid a wreath in front of the 6,000 visiting fans to honor Diogo, and there was also a minute of silence for Diogo and his brother. Preston fans joined with Liverpool fans in singing their anthem, "You'll Never Walk Alone" in a special 20th minute tribute in honor of his number 20. Liverpool players honored Diogo with their goal celebrations, and I expect that similar events will happen at our match as well.
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| An emotional match for Leão, too. |
Milan are planning to wear black armbands for this match to honor Diogo, whose number 20 was retired by Liverpool across all levels of their club. This one will be especially emotional for Rafa Leão, who was his teammate for Portugal, too, and also just lifted the Nations League cup with him in June. Perhaps it is too much to ask of this management, but I hope that they are prepared to appropriately and respectfully honor the player, his brother, and a grieving club on Saturday.
That said, while allowing space for the living to grieve, my guess is that most footballers would want football to go on in their absence. So, a Milan team that finished eighth in Serie A last season and is under reconstruction with a new manager will face Arne Slot's Premier League winners Saturday evening in Hong Kong as part of the Hong Kong Football Festival.
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| The best Milan had to offer on Wednesday was not particularly great. |
Whereas Liverpool won their early friendly 3-1 vs. Preston North End, nearly two weeks ago now, Milan lost 1-0 to Arsenal in their friendly in Singapore on Wednesday. Needless to say, it was not a great performance from Milan. Arsenal fired off 23 shots while Milan only managed three, with one on target. To be fair, only eight of Arsenal's 23 shots were on target, and five of the seven saves were made by the young Torriani, who was by far the highlight of the match.
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| Torriani was 100% the highlight of everything on Wednesday. |
Torriani also shone in the practice penalty shootout at the end, which Milan won 6-5 thanks to him making three penalty saves. With Maignan not available for the match, Pietro Terracciano played his first 66 minutes for Milan, but he also had the starters in front of him. Allegri's starting 3-5-2 also included Ricci for his debut, and the midfield certainly looked stronger for having him in it. However, with a severe lack of full backs, the formation was virtually dictated for him, and not even all of those 11 players were up to the task.
Allegri managed to bring on everyone but the third keeper, 17 year-old Pittarella, who was a last minute replacement for Noah Raveyre, who completed his transfer to Ligue 2 side Pau FC this week. That meant we saw the other four players from Futuro and Primavera teams: Duțu, Magni, Comotto, and Liberali. Leão was the primary attacking option, with Loftus-Cheek making one charging run for goal. But Allegri's one pure striker on tour, Lorenzo Colombo, left the team to complete a move to Genoa, so will no longer be available for Liverpool.
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| Colombo is already back in Italy, set to go on loan again, this time to Genoa. |
We may or may not see minutes from new left back Pervis Estupiñan, who was signed on Wednesday from Brighton and joined the team in Hong Kong on Friday, where he was reunited with his former Villareal teammate, Samu Chukwueze. Álex Jiménez is still struggling with a fitness issue, so will not be back for this match, and Gimenez and Modrić are still on vacation. But both Maignan and Fofana are expected to be available for Allegri for this one after fitness issues. With the changes since Wednesday, that means his available players would now be:
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| Estupiñan will still be jet-lagged, so we may or may not see him yet on Saturday. |
Goalkeepers: Mike Maignan, Pietro Terracciano, Lorenzo Torriani, and Matteo Pittarella
Defenders: Davide Bartesaghi, Matteo Duțu, Pervis Estupian, Matteo Gabbia, Álex Jiménez, Vittorio Magni, Strahinja Pavlović, Filippo Terracciano, Malick Thiaw, and Fikayo Tomori
Midfielders: Warren Bondo, Christian Comotto, Youssouf Fofana, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Yunus Musah, Christian Pulisic, Samuele Ricci, Alexis Saelemaekers
Forwards: Samuel Chukwueze, Rafael Leão, Mattia Liberali, Noah Okafor
* Five players were called up from Milan Futuro or Primavera teams, indicated with italics. Newly signed players are indicated with bold italics.
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| Ricci was a welcome addition to our troubled midfield. |
Arne Slot named a 29-man squad to travel to Hong Kong: Alisson, Gomez, Endo, Van Dijk, Konatem, Diaz, Szoboszlai, Núñez, Mac Allister, Salah, Jones, Gakpo, Elliott, Tsimikas, Robertson, Gravenberch, Doak, Woodman, Mamardashvili, Kerkez, Wirtz, Frimpong, Pécsi, Ngumoha, Misciur, Morton, Bradley, Stephenson, and Nyoni. They have since been joined by new signing Hugo Ekitike as well. Miloš Kerkez was obviously asked about his time with Milan, to which he replied I "know a lot of the guys." Who's going to tell him? Only Gabbia, Tomori, Leão, and Saelemaekers remain from that team he left just three years ago. He will be meeting mostly strangers.
Milan will also be debuting their new third kits for 2025-26, which are anything but respectful. Reportedly inspired by the 1995-96 Scudetto winning season, they chose a "bright sunny yellow with deep green accents." From all the images I've seen, the yellow is the color of piss. Which is kind of perfect after such a piss poor season, but it's not a color I would choose. Yellow is a great color for a third kit, but it has to be the right shade of yellow, and this is not it. The only redeeming element of this one is that they were forced to use the proper red-white-and-black Milan badge instead of the soulless monochromatic one (don't look at the goalkeeper kits, though.)
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| A piss colored jersey after a piss poor season, not very respectful, though. |
Milan is hardly a team worthy of facing Liverpool right now, which was already proven last September when they destroyed us 3-1 in the Champions League at San Siro. (Fun fact: Torriani made his official debut and played nearly half of that match because Maignan was injured.) And that was with Theo Hernández and Reijnders, too. It's not like we're the AC Milan team of 2005. We're much more like the AC Milan team of 2015. So, aside from being unworthy footballing opponents, and wearing kits that make them look like they all peed their shirts, I hope that at least our players can properly honor the late Diogo Jota and his brother, and show reverence to a grieving Liverpool team. Tragedy has made this one less about football and more about respecting Liverpool, remembering Diogo.
Reviewed by Elaine
on
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