AS Roma – AC Milan: Spoils Shared After Three Hot Final Minutes (1-1)

Roma and Milan exchanged blows at the end of a match characterized by a slow tempo and lack of sharpness from both ends. Roma’s structured approach and team spirit frustrated Milan’s fluidity, but the visitors could still squeeze in a late goal, cancelling out Abraham’s effort and denying Roma a crucial win in the run for the top four spots.

Tactical analysis and match report written by Giovanni Cesaroni.

As the Serie A title has long gone into Napoli’s way, the heated fight for the Champions League qualification has entered the decisive stage with no less than six teams competing for the three remaining spots. In one of the last face-offs of the season, AS Roma hosted AC Milan, with both sides coming to the match sitting in fourth place with 56 points each.

Roma came to this match on the back of a 3-1 defeat in Bergamo against Atalanta and a growing list of unavailable players forcing José Mourinho to revamp his lineup. This time though, the Portuguese manager decided to opt for a 5-3-2 formation which saw the presence of two pure center-forwards, Tammy Abraham and Andrea Belotti, as Paulo Dybala was just able to make the bench after his recent injury woes heavily limited his contribution. The two attackers were supported by Lorenzo Pellegrini, Bryan Cristante and Nemanja Matić in midfield with the back five built on the center-backs trio of Roger Ibañez, Marash Kumbulla and Gianluca Mancini, as Leonardo Spinazzola and Zeki Çelik acted respectively as left and right wingback.

With a busy calendar coming up and almost the whole . . .