More than two months after the last center with Milan, Rafa finds the net again against Luxembourg with a great personal inspiration. Then a penalty is saved
The news coming from Luxembourg is that he is smiling again. Not like in the best of times, but it’s certainly a step forward. In the piece conceded by coach Roberto Martinez with Portugal, Rafa Leao found the goal again after more than two months of abstinence. In just over a quarter of an hour, the Rossoneri’s 17th came back alive, protagonist on the pitch even with an assist and a penalty won and then missed.
The match
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In the 6-0 trimmed against Luxembourg, Leao played little more than a handful of minutes in the final. Coming on in the 75th minute at 4-0, he replaced Joao Felix on the wing and within two laps he scratched the game with a kissing assist for Otavio’s header. Then, another couple of revs and a penalty earned 5′ from the end for a foul by Jans in the area. All set for the return to the goal, or almost: from the penalty spot, fate gets in the way and Moris is good at denying the joy thanks to an excellent reflex on the right to cross. Rafa frowns, but reacts. And in the 89th minute, he put the point in the game with a nice diagonal right foot, spreading the Luxembourg central players almost as if they were skittles.
Return to goal
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Even if barely mentioned, the smile reappears, with the swing experienced on the pitch that sounds like a message to Stefano Pioli. In the national team you briefly reviewed the arrow of some time ago, with a light leg and the right attitude, ready to attempt the play and start on the wing to create play and superiority. Thirteen games and two and a half months after the last time (in the 2-2 draw on January 14th at Via del Mare, against Lecce), Leao is back in the scorer’s table. Despite a dampened joy from the failed shot from eleven meters, costing a piece of the evening’s overall satisfaction.
Message to Milan
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It is a starting point after the gray of the last few weeks, which together with the old gusts concentrated in the quarter of an hour of the Stade de Luxembourg also bodes well for Milan. In view of a high-tension season finale, between the run-up to fourth place and the Eurochallenge with Napoli, Pioli will need his best man at the top. Since he moved to the three-man defence, Leao’s performance has worsened and it’s no mystery: to get excited and fuel Milan, the Portuguese needs wide spaces and a wing on which to run, between dribbling and swerving. Taking a look at Martinez’s boys, perhaps Pioli will have found some more conviction towards the already meditated return to the past. When Leao laughed at it, together with the Devil.
March 27 – 11:45 am
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