It’s not a decisive match, but we’re close. The Cagliari of Claudio Ranieri returns to San Siro, just under a month after the last away match but at Inter’s home, to try to pick up the thread woven against the big teams in the last period. A woven thread of good performances, in terms of attitude and what the rossoblù offer, also in terms of concreteness. The rossoblù will face a Milan in which disappointment for the present and uncertainty for the future have opened wounds between the team and the fans. But for these very reasons it could be even more dangerous. But what will be the keys to the challenge on the field? Let’s try to find out through the usual data collection work Daniele Bianchi.
Ideas
Milan is a team that, due to its style of play, prefers to have the dominance over the ball, with an offensive maneuver that favors passing on the flanks to exploit one-on-one situations in the lanes, especially the left-footed one where Theo Hernandez and Leao are the main protagonists. However, Pioli’s team does not disdain direct play as can be seen from the pie chart.
Taking into consideration the way in which Cagliari approached matches against teams with characteristics similar to those described, it is easily foreseeable that the Rossoneri’s dominance of the ball will also be confirmed tomorrow, Saturday 11 May, both in the construction phase and in the last third of the opponent’s pitch. Milan is in fact third in the entire Serie A, only behind Inter and Napoli, in the first statistic with a number of passes in their own half of the pitch before an opponent’s defensive action of 15.03, almost five points more than Cagliari (10.27). The Milanese team are fourth in terms of passes into the final third of the opponent’s pitch in the league 51.46while the rossoblù, who rely on a more direct game, stop at 47.09.
But Cagliari is used to it to deal with these situations in which the opponents keep the ball in their hands and do their own thing compactness an important weapon to attempt to subvert hierarchies when necessary. The rossoblù are the fourth team in Serie A, in percentage, to suffer fewer conclusions from attacks managed with the 22.54%. A better figure than all the contenders for salvation, but also than Milan itself which is the second worst team in the top flight in terms of statistics with 28.80%, distinguishing itself positively only from Frosinone.
Key
The functionality of the low block it could be one of the keys to the challenge for Cagliari, come on both the fronts of the game. Also because Milan usually struggle to give speed to their dribbling: per minute, the average number of passes from Pioli’s men is in fact 16.27, clearly behind the other teams that make up the left side of the championship table, especially Inter who complete over 18 passes per minute on average. The ability of Ranieri’s team to oppose its defensive density to its opponents could also be transformed into an offensive weapon, as has already happened. With the rossoblùs having to try dirty the Rossoneri’s maneuver to play their cards in restarttaking advantage of his predilection for direct play.
The islanders will thus have to try to confirm the trend that has given them greater success in the last period, however leaving behind the performance with the Lecce. Thanks to the numerical superiority of the Salento team, in the last round Cagliari once again suffered a lot, causing the number of players to shoot up. Expected Goals awarded for each shot conceded. The xG figure has reached 0.20, the second worst average of the season behind only that recorded in the away match against Lazio of 0.26. And above all, far from the best performance of the year under this statistic that emerged against Juventus, when the xG data conceded for each shot conceded stopped at 0.05. A fact to look at to return to winning precious points to avoid that the practical salvation remains open until the last round of the championship.
Matteo Cardia
