Football

Milan Into Champions League Semifinals After 16 Years Despite Late Napoli Goal

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With a 2-1 win on aggregate, AC Milan will face either Inter Milan or Portuguese side Benfica in the last four of the UEFA Champions League.

Serie A champion last season. A title holders League rival this season.

AC Milan is recovering its birth as a European power after a turbulent stretch marked by the end of Silvio Berlusconi’s power and fiscal issues.

The seven- time international champion reached the last four of the titleholders League with a 1- 1 draw at Napoli on Tuesday with a first- half thing from Olivier Giroud proving decisive.

Also, Milan goal keeper Mike Maignan blocked a late penalty from Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Napoli’s name winger, with Giroud also having a penalty kick saved before his thing.

Victor Osimhen evened for Napoli with a title in cessation time.

Milan advanced on 2- 1 total in the each- Italian tourney after beating the raw Serie A leader 1- 0 in the first leg.

Milan’s semifinal opponent will be either megacity rival Inter Milan or Benfica. Inter holds a 2- 0 advantage entering the alternate leg against the Portuguese club at the San Siro on Wednesday.

Real Madrid excluded Chelsea on the other half of the draw in the night’s other tourney.

Giroud scored two twinkles before the break with a thing that was largely produced by the work of Milan’s prized winger Rafael Leão.

Leão gained possession in Milan’s own half and zigzagged his way past Napoli’s entire defense before unselfishly picking out the unmarked Giroud to niche home into an empty net after pulling goalkeeper Alex Meret out of position.

Before, Meret had been the star, first by swatting down a penalty from Giroud that Leão had earned also blocking yet another clear look from Giroud, who was France’s starting center forward for the World Cup final loss to Argentina.

Napoli had Serie A scoring leader Osimhen back from a ham muscle injury that kept him out of the first leg.

The hosts started out in full control but had trouble getting the ball to Osimhen, while Milan reckoned on counterassaults .

The scene inside the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona was electric at the launch following a armistice over the weekend between protesting suckers and Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis over high ticket prices and other issues.

But in the end, it was the small fund of Milan suckers making further noise, singing and stomping their bases in accord so hard that the colosseum was rocking back and forth.

Milan’s seven European Cup and title holders League titles rank second only to Madrid’s 14 but the Rossoneri last raised the jewel back in 2007.

Milan’s Serie A title last time was also its first in a while — since 2011.

Berlusconi had controlled Milan for further than 30 times before dealing to a Chinese institute in 2017. U.S.- grounded barricade fund Elliott Management took over the ensuing time also the club was vended to another American investment establishment, Red Bird Capital mates, last time.

Milan freely removed itself from the 2019- 20 Europa League to deal with fiscal fair play violations and only returned to the titleholders League last season after a seven- season absence.

It might feel like old times again in Milan if the Rossoneri face 2010 champion Inter in a European derby.

Napoli, meanwhile, can now concentrate on closing out its first Serie A title in further than 30 times, since Maradona led the southern club to its only two Italian league crowns in 1987 and 1990.

Napoli holds a putatively invincible 14- point lead over Lazio with eight rounds remaining.

Maradona also led Napoli to its only European title in 1989 when the club won the alternate- league UEFA Cup. This was Napoli’s first titleholders League quarterfinal. Know More Football News…

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