MILAN
WHO WILL BE MILAN’S ATTACKING TRUMP CARD?
Facing a Tottenham Hotspur defence prone to inconsistency and unforced errors, the Rossoneri will be optimistic that their front-line partnership of Olivier Giroud and Rafael Leao will be able to fire them to their first Champions League quarter-final since 2012.
The partnership of golden oldie target man Giroud and the lively, mobile Leao, still only 23, has proved a key element in Milan’s renaissance, and if Spurs manager Antonio Conte is to justify his reputation as a defensive mastermind, he will have to find a way to neutralise the pair.
Easier said than done. The 36-year-old Giroud, who especially caught the eye at the World Cup in Qatar and now installed as France’s all-time top scorer, is highly effective when laying the ball off with his back to goal, clever in his decoy runs and invariably in the right place at the right time in the penalty box.
Leao is the ying to Giroud’s yang. Tremendously quick over the ground and a brilliant dribbler, the former Lille starlet has come on leaps and bounds over the past year. More opportunistic, more self-confident and much less likely to fade from view when the going gets tough. His sensational goal against Switzerland at the World Cup, skilfully cutting inside before curling the ball into the top corner from the left edge of the box, was something of a work of art. Milan team-mate, the Belgian midfielder
