{"id":591201,"date":"2021-05-16T02:53:18","date_gmt":"2021-05-16T06:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=591201"},"modified":"2021-05-16T02:53:18","modified_gmt":"2021-05-16T06:53:18","slug":"ac-milan-face-cagliari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/16\/ac-milan-face-cagliari\/","title":{"rendered":"AC Milan Face Cagliari in Champions League Clinching Match"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/12\/ac-milan-target-lucas-vazquez\/\" target=\"_self\">AC Milan<\/a> face Cagliari in the legendary San Siro on Sunday evening. Milan will finally clinch a Champions League spot since the 2013\/14 season with a win following Atalanta&#8217;s success on Saturday. This, of course, would send Milan fans over the moon. More than that, it would allow the <em>Rossoneri\u00a0<\/em>to keep their star players as well as invest in more players. The implications of this match are massive.<\/p>\n<h2>AC Milan Face Cagliari in Champions League Clinching Match at the San Siro<\/h2>\n<h3>AC Milan Form<\/h3>\n<p>Put everything in the past aside, the\u00a0<em>Rossoneri\u00a0<\/em>are in electric form. In fact, they&#8217;ve won their last two games by a combined score of 10-0, all in the city of Turin in a matter of five days.<\/p>\n<p>Last weekend, they demolished <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/11\/gianluigi-buffon-to-leave-juventus-this-summer\/\" target=\"_self\">Juventus<\/a> with a 3-0 score. Brahim Diaz, Ante Rebic, and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/10\/ac-milan-fikayo-tomori\/\" target=\"_self\">Fikayo Tomori<\/a> scored the goals. Milan&#8217;s defence, however, was the main difference as the Cristiano Ronaldo-led Juventus squad only managed one shot on target. That was a massive match for both of Milan and Juventus&#8217;s Champions League dreams.<\/p>\n<p>Then, on Wednesday, Milan shocked Serie A with a 7-0 victory over Torino. Theo Hernandez scored a brace, Franck Kessie scored a penalty (after missing one against Juventus), Diaz found the score sheet again, and Rebic secured a hat-trick. Milan are on borderline elite form right now knowing everything that&#8217;s on the line.<\/p>\n<h3>Likely Line-Up for AC Milan<\/h3>\n<p>Zlatan Ibrahimovic will <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/05\/10\/zlatan-ibrahimovic-injury-update\/\" target=\"_self\">remain out<\/a> for this game. At first, that seemed like a major issue to finish the season, but Rebic has stepped up.<\/p>\n<p>Gianluigi Donnarumma will start in goal, without question. The defence should also remain the same, featuring Davide Calabria, Tomori, Simon Kjaer, and Hernandez.<\/p>\n<p>The return of Ismael Bennacer is a major factor in Milan&#8217;s form, and he&#8217;ll start in the midfield alongside Kessie.<\/p>\n<p>Diaz&#8217;s hot form will keep him as the starting attacking midfielder. Hakan Calhanoglu, the team&#8217;s top playmaker, will start on the left-wing. Alexis Saelemaekers will return from his suspension and take the right-winger position from Samu Castillejo.<\/p>\n<p>Lastly, Ante Rebic will start as the lone striker. Although he&#8217;s typically a winger, his four goals in his last three halves of play are convincing enough.<\/p>\n<h3>Predicted Outcome<\/h3>\n<p>Cagliari also have plenty to play for. They&#8217;re not completely out of the relegation race, just five points ahead of 18th place Benevento with two matches to go. They&#8217;ll likely remain safe, but it&#8217;s still not a given.<\/p>\n<p>Milan, however, are too hot right now. A win could potentially clinch the Champions League as well, so they&#8217;ll come out all guns blazing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Prediction: AC Milan 3-1 Cagliari<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"x_Zz_oGCR_p8dXTJXVyqtg\" 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\/1313091352\" 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:'x_Zz_oGCR_p8dXTJXVyqtg',sig:'MK8CmF_Ah9vlqn4Zu-k4ArDl0JkRZa0pLdvyEtAE7MM=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1313091352',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 face Cagliari in the legendary San Siro on Sunday evening. Milan will finally clinch a Champions League spot since the 2013\/14 season with a win following Atalanta&#8217;s success on Saturday. This, of course, would send Milan fans over the moon. More than that, it would allow the Rossoneri\u00a0to keep their star players as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2248,"featured_media":591292,"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":[1363,1828,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-591201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ac-milan","category-fixtures","category-serie-a"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591201","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=591201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}