Champions League: Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad

Despite what the cluster of “shot” dots in front of the Celtic goal on Soccernet’s Gametracker made clear was a dominating performance by Milan, it took the Italian club until extra time to break through against a resilient Celtic side. When they did, though — with the tournament’s leading scorer Kaka beating the defense and nutting Celtic keeper (and possible Dida replacement) Artur Boruc in the 93rd minute — one goal was enough to put Milan through to the quarterfinals.

While the final result was in no way unexpected (The awesome Guardian liveblog started with this: “Carlo Ancelotti is one of only five people to have won the European Cup as both player and manager. [Celtic manager Gordon] Strachan, meanwhile, is likely to remain one of the 17 billion people to have lifted it neither as a player nor a manager.”), the match sounds like a fantastic one, both in terms of the play on the pitch and the atmosphere, as the San Siro was full for the first time since the death in Sicily, and Celtic’s away support is always epic.

Word out of Milan after the game, needless to say, was all about being the best in the world, and never having a doubt about going through, and blah blah blah. (Anything to avoid looking at the league table.) Don’t get me wrong, they’re definitely on the road to getting their form back (apart from that whole finishing thing), but let’s hold off on lifting that trophy yet, huh?

The draw for the quarters comes Friday, with a pool that, despite the upsets in this round, still features of some pretty good teams: Milan, Roma, PSV, Man bloody United, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Chelsea and Valencia.

Category: AC Milan, Champions League, Results, Serie A

Tags: AC Milan, Artur Boruc, Champions League, Kaka, Results, Serie A

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