Milan lifts weights! Al-Ittihad newspaper

Rome (AFP)

Portuguese striker Rafael Leao paved the way for his team Milan to win the Italian league title for the first time since 2011, by scoring the goal of winning against Fiorentina 1 – zero in the deadly time Sunday at the “San Siro” stadium in the thirty-fifth stage.
And coach Stefano Pioli’s team seemed to be satisfied with a goalless draw, and thus compromising the gift given to him by Bologna in the middle of the week, by defeating the arch-rival Inter, the defending champion, 2-1 in the “famous” postponed match of the twentieth stage.
But Liao said his speech in the 82nd minute, after a gift from the guest goalkeeper, giving the Rossoneri the 77th point in the lead, five points ahead of Inter, who later beat Udinese in a fateful match for Simone Inzaghi’s team, because any stumble would complicate his mission to retain the title.
“The team played well and fought fiercely against a team that caused us problems, Fiorentina was dangerous, but we took another step forward for us, and for our wonderful fans,” Pioli said after the match.
For many weeks, there was talk about this postponed match from the twentieth stage between the defending champion Inter and its host Bologna, and the role it will play in determining the identity of the hero. The last three if Inter beat Udinese.
Matters are now in the hands of Milan, which will seek to win its remaining three matches without looking at what Inter will achieve, and even needs two wins and a draw to resolve its first title since 2011, even if Inter won all its four matches, as a result of the difference in the two direct confrontations, which is in the interest of the Pioli team.
After hosting Fiorentina before being a guest of Verona, Milan will return to the “San Siro” to meet Atalanta, and conclude the season in the land of Sassuolo.
As for Inter, after traveling to Udine, he will receive Empoli and then visit Cagliari, and end the season at home against Sampdoria, knowing that he is playing before the last two stages of the Italian Cup final against Juventus on May 11 in his quest for the local double.
Milan faced its guest Fiorentina at an appropriate time, because the “Viola” is suffering recently, which is a solution to “San Siro” against the background of three consecutive defeats against Juventus 0-2 in the second leg of the cup semi-final, Salernitana 1-2 and then Udinese on His home was 0-4 in the last two stages, before adding another defeat on Sunday at the hands of Liao and Milan.
After the first half ended in a negative way, Pioli tried to revitalize his team by introducing the Croatian Ante Rebic and the Bosnian Rady Krunic instead of the Brazilian Junior Messias and the Spaniard Ibrahim Dias, respectively (56), without any modification to the result, which prompted him to throw the Swede Zlatan Ibrahimovic instead of the French Olivier. Jiro «67».
But the goal would have come from the opposite side, had it not been for the brilliance of French goalkeeper Mike Magnan in the face of the header of the Brazilian Arthur Cabral «76».
With the approach of the last ten minutes, Pioli resorted to the Algerian Ismail bin Nasser at the expense of the Ivorian Frank Casey, and the relief came shortly after, thanks to a gift from Fiorentina goalkeeper Pietro Terracano, who scattered the ball directly towards Liao, who advanced it before shooting it into the net (82), Exploding joy in the stands of “San Siro”.
Leao became, according to statistics, “Opta”, the fifth Portuguese player to score 10 goals or more in the Italian league after Beto, Rui Costa, Rui Baros and Cristiano Ronaldo, but the only one to reach 10 goals before his twenty-third birthday.
Pioli said that Liao’s goal “lifted a huge weight off our shoulders, we kept the same mentality and continued to work as a team, there will always be tension in matches of this kind, we are competing for a very important goal, so we all feel that energy, and it becomes more difficult to keep them with progression «in the season».
Veteran Juventus defender Leonardo Bonucci scored a double for his team, which beat Venezia 2-1, and is on the verge of officially qualifying for the Champions League next season.
And Juventus raised its score to 69 points in fourth place.
Bonucci gave himself the best gift for his thirty-fifth birthday when he opened the scoring with a header after 7 minutes, but Venezia equalized with a long-range shot from Mattia Aramo (71), and Bonucci said the last word again by scoring the winning goal in the 75th minute.
Juventus have lost only once in the last nine matches, and that happened against Inter 0-1 in early April.

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