The UEFA Champions League is picking up pace as it nears the business end. The second leg of the quarterfinals are done with, and we now know the semis are going to be Real Madrid vs Manchester City and the Milan derby. The four matches this mid-week bought with it plenty of goals, action and generally brilliant moments. With so much happening, ESPN India attempts to pick out the one moment that we feel defined the mid-week UCL action.
For this second edition, we pick Rafael Leao's assist for AC Milan's goal in Naples.
Nothing's going right for AC Milan. It's minute 43 of their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal tie against Napoli and they are under the cosh. And some. They lead the tie 1-0 but they've barely got a kick all game this time around. The one big chance they got, a penalty, was missed by Olivier Giroud early.
The Diego Armando Maradona stadium has been bouncing from the first minute and only some lackadaisical finishing from the home side is keeping the scores level. Milan need to do something, find a pressure valve release from somewhere. This is when Tanguy Ndombele, on loan at Napoli from Spurs, miscontrols a regulation pass inside from Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
And it falls to Rafael Leao.
At six foot two and proportionately broad, Leao is not your regulation winger. He'd started off as a centre-forward, but at Milan they deploy him mostly on the left wing. He's been with the club for four years, and in that time he's gone from inconsistent maverick to A-grade threat every time he gets the ball. Last season he was the prime driver of Milan's sensational title run... he was so good that in the Ballon d'Or rankings no Milan, or Portuguese player was ranked higher (14th).
On Tuesday, at the Maradona Stadium, he's shown repeatedly why he's the single most important player for the defending Italian champions. Any bits of attack have come when the ball's found his feet. The penalty Giroud missed earlier in the game? Won by Leao, with a rapid change of pace inside the Napoli box. So even though Leao's about 30 yards inside his half, the moment he gets on the ball a hint of panic sets in around the stadium.
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His first touch allows him to open his body up and start running. Leao is rapid, but unlike most pacy wingers, he doesn't kick the ball a distance and beat everyone in the chase to it (think prime Gareth Bale). He keeps it close and starts accelerating. Four touches in, Ndombele -- who had started level with him -- is a shadow. He's picked up pace so smoothly, it's a bit like Ndombele has stopped running. Two more touches and he's into the Napoli half. A gentle drop of the shoulder and Giovanni Di Lorenzo is taken out of the equation, completely squared up.
Three more touches and suddenly he's just 10 yards outside the Napoli box. That hint of panic is now approaching a full-blown breakdown.
Ndombele is chasing him, but he might as well have stopped when he first lost the ball for all the good it's doing. As he approaches the box, Leao incredibly picks up even more pace. Big Amir Rrahmani steps up and places his considerable frame in front of Leao and the ball. A shrug of the shoulders and Rrahmani is on the ground, bullied like he hasn't been by anyone all season.
By now, Leao is at the edge of the Napoli six-yard box: exactly ten seconds after he'd picked the ball up deep inside his half.
Alex Meret comes out trying to close the angle, but Leao sees the big picture immediately. A quick stutter step to regain complete balance and the pass is made perfectly to Olivier Giroud. He hasn't even looked up to see where Giroud is till the moment he made the pass, but he knows his striker is there. It's the kind of improved game awareness that has turned him into one of the most dangerous players in Serie A. Served on a plate, Giroud makes no mistake this time, calmly stroking it into the empty net.
Milan. 2-0 on aggregate. Body blow to Napoli.
Victor Osimhen would equalise late on (on the night) for the runaway Serie A leaders, but by then it was too little too late. The match had already been decided. AC Milan were going to the semifinals of the Champions League for the first time in 16 years: and it was all thanks to maverick-turned-gamechanger Rafael Leao, and the run that perfectly encapsulated his incredibly direct threat.