Ac Milan’s coach, Massimiliano Allegri wasn’t all please with the 0-0 draw especially the fact that President, Silvio Berlusconi, didn’t like the possession dominance that Barcelona had, but the tactician is still proud of what his players shown in the game.
Although agreeing the president’s concern, the ex-Cagliari coach believes that the result should be taken positively as a stalemate means that the tie is still pretty open for both teams in the second leg.
Allegri also hope that the ability in keeping Barcelona scoreless can give more confidence for Milan players and simply take it to the second leg and improve the performance even more, especially up front. The tactician understand that the return leg will be a difficult game since the home team will obviously be fired up and aggressive in front of their fans, but with more confidence along with better physical condition, Milan could hope for a qualification, especially if they can get a goal.
“I think the President is right, in that at times we played very well and in the first half used up a lot of energy. We defended in a very organised fashion. We must be happy with the result, especially as we have two out of three results open to us in the second leg. Barcelona have scored in almost all their games, so I must compliment my lads for doing so well. It will be very tough in Spain, but this result gives us strength,” Allegri stated.
Furthermore, Allegri also revealed that he wasn’t actually managed to make a better tactical substitution on the match, because all of the changes he made happened due to fitness issue that his players were facing. The likes of Robinho, Kevin Prince-Boateng and Alessandro Nesta, who all just returned from injuries apparently weren’t able to finish of the game, forcing Milan to make changes based on the position of those players, instead of making something extra on the pitch.
“I had to make three substitutions due to physical problems. Hopefully some can start to recover for the second leg and others can find better form,” Allegri stated.
