AC Milan want to “change the outlook” of their dismal campaign in the Coppa Italia semi-final against arch rivals Inter Milan after their hopes of European qualification through Serie A suffered another setback.
Milan were beaten 2-1 by Serie A title challengers Napoli on Sunday, a dreadful opening 20 minutes seeing them fall 2-0 behind to goals from Matteo Politano and Romelu Lukaku.
The Rossoneri improved in the second half, but were unable to salvage a point as Santiago Gimenez missed a 69th-minute penalty before Luka Jovic pulled one back late on.
It means Milan are five points behind sixth-placed Roma, who occupy sixth place for what would be a spot in next season’s Conference League, with eight games to play.
A late surge to erase that deficit looks very unlikely and, with victory in the Coppa Italia clinching a place in the Europa League, coach Sergio Conceicao is focused on Wednesday’s first leg of a huge two-legged semi-final with Inter.
“It’s very frustrating, because we didn’t deserve this defeat,” Conceicao said. “We want to change the outlook and on Wednesday we have the chance to do so.”
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— AC Milan (@acmilan) March 30, 2025
Speaking to DAZN after the defeat to Napoli, Conceicao stopped short of making excuses, but pointed to the misfortune of illness removing two players from his squad.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek was rushed to hospital with appendicitis, while Malick Thiaw was also unwell.
“Since I’ve been here, more or less three months, I’ve never found excuses for the lack of time to work,” he said.
“Today, everything went wrong. I woke up at 7:30 am, Loftus-Cheek was sick and went to the hospital for surgery. After that, they told me that Thiaw couldn’t play because he vomited, he had a stomach bug.
“Shortly after that, they told me that [Rafael] Leao was experiencing discomfort in his thigh. Then again, they are not excuses, we could have done much more. The first ball they put forward, they scored. We didn’t play the first 20 minutes as we had prepared.
“These things happen, I don’t want to cling to bad luck because we could have done more, but today, everything really happened. Then in the second half, the team reacted very well, it was needed. In the second half, we created so many chances, the right result would have been a draw in my opinion.”
Leao came off the bench to feature and was involved in the build-up for Jovic’s goal, but that came too little, too late after Gimenez saw a tame penalty saved by Alex Meret.
Asked who should have taken the penalty, Conceicao said: “We have three main takers. [Christian] Pulisic wanted to give confidence to his team-mate who hasn’t scored for a few weeks.
“We know how things are. It’s not up to me to say something to the players, it’s the three of them who decide based on how they feel.
“But this is a good sign, it’s the sign of a united dressing room. There’s the awareness that we had to do more in the first 25 minutes, there’s great frustration because we didn’t deserve this defeat.”
Milan are the designated home team for the first leg of their semi-final, the winner of which will face either lowly Empoli or Champions League-chasing Bologna in the final at the Stadio Olimpico on May 14.
