{"id":557151,"date":"2020-07-08T10:13:15","date_gmt":"2020-07-08T14:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=557151"},"modified":"2020-07-08T10:13:15","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T14:13:15","slug":"three-ac-milan-positives-versus-juventus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/07\/08\/three-ac-milan-positives-versus-juventus\/","title":{"rendered":"Three AC Milan Positives From Stunning Comeback Against Juventus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/ac-milan\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">AC Milan<\/a> played their best football of the season in the last 30 minutes of the second half versus <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/juventus\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Juventus<\/a> on Tuesday night. Down 2-0, the team scored three goals in five minutes, then capped off the victory with another goal in the 80th minute. The team are essentially out of the Champions League hunt, but this win will go down as their best of the season. Take a look at three Milan positives from the match.<\/p>\n<h2>Three AC Milan Takeaways Versus Juventus<\/h2>\n<h3>Franck Kessie &#8211; The Man in Form<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/05e19d6a\/Franck-Kessie\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Franck Kessie<\/a> has arguably been Milan&#8217;s top performer since Serie A&#8217;s return. The\u00a0<em>Rossoneri<\/em>&#8216;s last two games made that clear.<\/p>\n<p>Versus Lazio, he effectively shut down <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/4e6dbac4\/Sergej-Milinkovic-Savic\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sergej Milinkovic-Savic<\/a>. Against Juventus, he was pivotal in the midfield and scored the goal to make things level at 2-2.<\/p>\n<p>Rumours had been swirling about his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.acmilaninfo.com\/kessie-to-leave-milan-only-on-one-condition\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">possible departure<\/a>, but that seems distant now. The two-man midfield shows another side of Kessie, clearly his best version of himself. Much of Milan&#8217;s sudden climb up to possible European qualification is attributed to the Ivorian&#8217;s performances.<\/p>\n<p>Kessie lit up the statistic sheet. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whoscored.com\/Matches\/1415992\/Live\/Italy-Serie-A-2019-2020-AC-Milan-Juventus\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">He won all aerial duels, recorded seven interceptions, and completed 90% of his passes<\/a>. Kessie is changing for the better before Milan&#8217;s very eyes. His man-of-the-match worthy performance is the top of Milan&#8217;s positives.<\/p>\n<h3>Rafael Le\u00e3o Makes the Difference<\/h3>\n<p>Youngster <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/20730eae\/Rafael-Leao\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rafael Le\u00e3o<\/a> was key to Milan securing results versus both SPAL and Juventus. Versus the <em>Bianconeri<\/em>, he scored a wonderful winning goal after an attack that looked dead.<\/p>\n<p>His energy and drive to succeed is clear. He continues to make a positive difference up front whether positioned as a striker or winger. The sheer ability to be as versatile as he is at a young age is impressive.<\/p>\n<p>Le\u00e3o typically comes off the bench as <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/4cde5509\/Zlatan-Ibrahimovic\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Zlatan Ibrahimovic<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/536cebe5\/Ante-Rebic\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ante Rebic<\/a> are seen as the primary goal scorers. He&#8217;s done well in that role since football&#8217;s return, but is pushing for more. The Portuguese striker has the talent to be a starter sooner rather than later. Perhaps Milan may be better suited starting all three of the aforementioned forwards. Expect his future performances to continue making there way into post-match Milan positives.<\/p>\n<h3>Gianluigi Donnarumma is Always Key<\/h3>\n<p>Juventus&#8217; first two goals were defensive errors. Neither can be attributed to <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/08f5afaa\/Gianluigi-Donnarumma\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gianluigi Donnarumma<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Italian continues to have a fantastic season. His save versus <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/14b8fcdf\/Daniele-Rugani\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Daniele Rugani<\/a> to stop a possible Juventus comeback is easily one of his saves of the season. Donnarumma leads Serie A with 11 clean sheets and is arguably the top goalkeeper in the league. Milan needs to make it their priority to retain him this next transfer window. Teams aren&#8217;t built around goalkeepers often, but then again very rarely are there ones this special at such a young age. Donnarumma is the present and the future.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"-ONt6Yt8TmBYwnxH_6FHnA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1225392870\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'-ONt6Yt8TmBYwnxH_6FHnA',sig:'QyuxZhgsU-JM2Ods912tNfrN6CfDTZQYpatAxcCuMsM=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1225392870',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AC Milan played their best football of the season in the last 30 minutes of the second half versus Juventus on Tuesday night. Down 2-0, the team scored three goals in five minutes, then capped off the victory with another goal in the 80th minute. The team are essentially out of the Champions League hunt, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2248,"featured_media":557266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1363,5],"tags":[49,2361,1024,1184,323,4017,48,136,139],"class_list":["post-557151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ac-milan","category-serie-a","tag-ac-milan","tag-ante-rebic","tag-franck-kessie","tag-gianluigi-donnarumma","tag-juventus","tag-rafael-leao","tag-serie-a","tag-world-football","tag-zlatan-ibrahimovic"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}