Davide Calabria fired a warning to Milan as he declared Wednesday s clash with Porto to be their last chance of staying in the Champions League.
The Rossoneri are bottom of Group B, having lost all three of their matches against Liverpool, Atletico Madrid and Porto, and are on a five-game losing streak overall in the competition – the worst such run in their history.
Should they lose to Sergio Conceicao s side at San Siro and Atletico beat Liverpool at Anfield, Milan will be unable to finish higher than fourth in the group, meaning their European campaign would be over for 2021-22.
While their domestic form has been strong – they have won 10 of 11 Serie A matches this season, something only three teams have achieved before – Milan were deeply unconvincing in the reverse match against Porto, registering only four shots, their lowest such figure in a Champions League game in almost eight years.
10/11 AC Milan have become the 4th team in Serie A history to win 10 of the first 11 games of the season, after Roma, Juventus (twice) and Napoli (twice). Frenzied.
— OptaPaolo (@OptaPaolo)
Calabria feels Milan deserve to have at least some points from the first three matchdays but accepts a win is now essential to their chances of going through.
We have an outlook prepared; it s our last chance to stay in the Champions League, the defender said on Tuesday. We believe in ourselves and we have the quality to put in a great performance right from kick-off and stay in the competition.
Certain moments have led to the current standings. We don t deserve it but I am convinced that we have the potential to do better and take points, starting from tomorrow.
The Champions League is a competition that comes down to the finer details and some of the details have gone against us. It s a shame because we deserve more but there s not much to say. We ve been decent in the group until now, except for the game in Portugal.
Milan come into the match buoyed by Sunday s 2-1 league win at Roma, a result that ended Jose Mourinho s 43-game unbeaten home run in Serie A.
The match was not without controversy, though. Referee Fabio Maresca was criticised for his performance, as was VAR, with Mourinho walking away from a post-match interview with DAZN after claiming he feared a touchline ban if he spoke about the officials.
The time has come to show our mettle!
È il momento di dare tutto, crediamoci!
— AC Milan (@acmilan)
Milan boss Stefano Pioli insisted he and his team cannot become distracted by a growing debate over the standard of officiating in Italy.
I believe one thing: we beat Roma because we were the better team and lost against Porto because they were better than us, Pioli said. I can t control anything else.
We re just going to keep our focus on what we are doing. We analysed the performance with the players and we know what we did well. We can t waste our energy on external factors.
Now, we are thinking about the Champions League because we feel like we deserve more than zero points in the table and we have this game to confirm that – against a really tough side.
