Yahoo Sports Coppa Italia R16 | Milan 6-1 Sassuolo: Rossoneri go wild
Milan smashed Serie B leaders Sassuolo 6-1 at San Siro to book their Coppa Italia quarter-final spot, including a Samuel Chukwueze brace, Tijjani Reijnders and Rafael Leao goals.
They will go on to face either Roma or Sampdoria in the next stage of the tournament.
The Rossoneri were missing Mike Maignan, Theo Hernandez, Luka Jovic, Ismael Bennacer and Alessandro Florenzi, but started Rafael Leao and their first-choice midfield. Sassuolo were top of the Serie B table and had won three of their last four visits to San Siro, but also rotated with Domenico Berardi on the bench.
See how it unfolded on the Liveblog.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek stung the goalkeeper’s gloves in the opening 90 seconds, while Tammy Abraham had the ball in the net at the ninth minute, but Rafael Leao was offside when providing the assist for his header.
The deadlock was broken by a sensational Tijjani Reijnders ball floated over the top for Samuel Chukwueze, who fired the first attempt onto the upright one-on-one with the goalkeeper, but bundled the rebound over the line.
Reijnders added a goal to the assist soon after, because after Leao combined with Abraham to cut inside from the left and was blocked off, the loose ball rolled into the path of the Dutchman to unleash a scorching right-foot finish from outside the box.
Sassuolo gave it away cheaply in the final third and Abraham immediately laid it off for the on-rushing Chukwueze’s angled drive into the far bottom corner, completing his brace.
Milan struck again moments later on the counter-attack, Leao springing the offside trap on a clever Loftus-Cheek no-look pass to thump into the near bottom corner.
Loftus-Cheek nodded wide from a free kick, but Marco Sportiello parried a ferocious long-range Cristian Volpato strike and Janis Antiste was offside when turning in the rebound.
Leading comfortably, Paulo Fonseca made four changes at half-time, including teenage goalkeeper Lorenzo Torriani.
They still added a fifth, as Yunus Musah stung Satalino’s gloves and on the resulting corner the Christian Pulisic cross turned into a shot bouncing off the far post, with Davide Calabria turning in the rebound from a tricky angle.
Strahinja Pavlovic kept the clean sheet intact with a decisive sliding tackle on Samuele Mulattieri inside the penalty area. However, moments later Mulattieri’s finish squirmed under uncertain Torriani at the near post on a Janis Antiste assist from the right.
Abraham got in on the act too, turning in from a tight angle after Noah Okafor ran onto a through ball and rolled it across the six-yard box.
Torriani had his gloves stung by Cristian Volpato late on.
Milan 6-1 Sassuolo
Chukwueze 12, 21 (M), Reijnders 17 (M), Leao 23 (M), Calabria 56 (M), Mulattieri 59 (S), Abraham 62 (M)
