AC Milan struggled to earn the first score in the Champions League 2021/22
- cliffordwoods1987
- Nov 5, 2021
- 3 min read
Despite having the home field advantage, AC Milan only earned a 1-1 draw against Porto in the fourth round of the Champions League group stage 2021/22. This is a result that is not too bad after all, because before that Milan had lost 5 consecutive matches in Europe's most prestigious club tournament.
Final result AC Milan vs Porto (1-1)
Score: Mbemba (61', own goal) - Diaz (6')
A sublime start in Serie A, but AC Milan performed badly in the Champions League when they lost all three opening matches against Liverpool, Atletico Madrid and Porto. This is not a surprising result when Milan had to wait many years to return to the biggest arena in Europe and was pushed into the group called "death".

All hopes of Stefano Pioli's teachers and students are placed in the welcome screen of Porto in the 4th match this morning. They need to win 3 points to keep their hopes of winning the next ticket. The most important factors have all been launched by coach Pioli. However, things did not go as expected of the fans present at San Siro.
Milan entered the excitement but they had to pay the price for a mistake after only 6 minutes of play. From the situation to lose the ball of Ismael Bennacer, Marko Grujic created the set up for Luis Diaz to score the opener for Porto.
Being dumped with cold water too soon, AC Milan faced many difficulties in terms of play. The red-black team was forced to push up the squad, but Porto played better with the defensive - counter-attack strategy. In the 18th minute, without the excellence of goalkeeper Tatarusanu, Milan had to concede a second goal before Grujic's header.
It wasn't until the 34th minute of the match that AC Milan created the first significant chance with Olivier Giroud's finish but goalkeeper Diogo Costa excellently saved Porto. In the first 45 minutes, the Rossoneri only launched 2 shots, far behind Porto (8 times). Therefore, coach Pioli's team could not equalize before entering the halftime break.
At the beginning of the second half, Porto was still the better team. In the 56th minute, luck was on AC Milan's side when midfielder Otavio's header sent the ball to the crossbar of Tatarusanu.

However, in such a difficult game, AC Milan got the equalizer in the 61st minute. From the free kick situation outside the penalty area, the Rossoneri created a ball that made the Porto defense confused. Before Pierre Kalulu's shot from the left wing, centre-back Chancel Mbemba fumbled for an own goal. Thanks to that, the score was even at 1-1.
Excited after the equalizer, AC Milan put all their attack power with the determination to win 3 points. Coach Pioli decided to throw the old general Zlatan Ibrahimovic on the field in the last 15 minutes of the match. In the 83rd minute, the Swedish striker put the ball into Porto's net but Milan's goal was disallowed because Theo Hernandez had fallen into an offside position in the previous situation.
In front of Porto's very solid defense, AC Milan could not score the second goal and had to accept a 1-1 draw. In theory, Milan has not been officially eliminated but they have very little hope because they only have 1 point after 4 matches, 4 points behind the 2nd ranked team (Atletico Madrid). With 12 full points, Liverpool won the first ticket of this group to attend the 1/8 round.
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