Italy is a place that produces coaches.
For Allegri to make a name for himself on the Apennine Peninsula, where nearly everyone involved with football studies tactics, meant he was certainly not someone easy to deal with.
Although he had set his team up with a counterattacking approach,
they did not begin by parking the bus deep in their own half.
Their behavior was perfectly normal.
Right after kickoff,
they launched an attack off the restart.
Big Boateng received Montolivo's pass and shielded the ball with his back to goal.
His frame was broad enough to let him function like a pillar-type center forward, serving as a bridgehead.
Shane kept applying force from behind, pressing him hard and making the Ghanaian international stagger a little, but Boateng still managed to release the ball in time.
Boateng laid it off, and Montolivo stepped onto it and sent a diagonal long pass.
The ball travelled toward the left flank.
Milan's left-back De Sciglio had already pushed up, and Dejan was active on that side as well.
After receiving the ball, Dejan used the space created by De Sciglio's movement, cut inside one step, and then whipped in a cross.
The ball glanced off Balotelli's head and went out for a goal kick.
A huge sigh rose from the AC Milan crowd.
If Balotelli had jumped just a little higher, he might have been able to head it into the goal.
"Balotelli... dangerous! Oh..."
"The match has only just started, and Atlético's goal has already come under threat!"
"It looks like the home side AC Milan is going to make full use of this advantage!"
"They may have no hope of winning Serie A anymore, and they have already been eliminated from the Coppa Italia. For AC Milan, the Champions League is the only competition left where they can realistically chase a trophy."
"Don't be fooled by their unstable league form. They've already lost seven league matches this season, but nobody dares look down on them in the Champions League. This is a team with Champions League DNA!"
As the commentators were speaking,
Atlético recovered possession.
Courtois played the ball to Godín, who had opened up to provide an outlet.
Godín then passed to Koke, who had just returned from injury.
Koke had been training very hard to recover in time for this Champions League knockout tie.
In the end, before this match,
Simeone judged that Koke was physically ready to start.
As soon as Koke received the ball, he looked for Shane.
Because Atlético's attack revolved around Shane,
they rarely went long.
And Simeone deliberately wanted Shane to control the ball more often.
Rather than sending Shane into defensive work,
Simeone preferred to let him fully express his attacking talent.
To that end, he had also adjusted some of his own tactical ideas.
For example,
when Atlético had possession,
he no longer asked the team to launch attacks quickly down the wings.
Instead, he wanted them to build through Shane's feet.
That would certainly raise Atlético's possession numbers,
but it was the best way to bring out Shane's offensive ability.
Get the ball to him,
and then watch what he does.
Simeone, just like every Atlético fan,
was always expecting Shane to produce something unexpected.
Allegri's team clearly knew that too. They had studied Atlético's system very thoroughly.
When Koke received the ball,
several Milan players had already carried out their assignments. Their main goal was to cut off the passing lane between Koke and Shane.
Shane pointed toward the back line.
Koke immediately played the ball to center-back Godín.
At the same time,
Shane drifted laterally into space.
Godín, without taking a touch, slipped the ball straight into Shane's feet.
Shane pulled the ball back, turned, nutmegged the pressing Dejan, and before he could be surrounded, lifted his foot and sent a long pass!
Griezmann received Shane's precise long ball, cut inside one step, and tried to slip a through ball toward Costa, but Milan's defenders saw the attempt coming.
The French center-back Mexès intercepted successfully.
The ball was quickly moved to Muntari's feet, then sideways to Montolivo, and Montolivo sent it long.
Balotelli received it while backing into Atlético's defensive line, but with Miranda tightly attached to him, he couldn't turn.
He could only lay the ball back to Flamini, who had moved up in support.
Flamini hadn't even received the ball yet
when Gabi timed it perfectly.
He slid in with perfect precision.
While poking the ball out of play, he also brought Flamini crashing to the ground.
A wave of boos swept through the San Siro stands.
The referee did not call a foul.
He did not award AC Milan a throw-in either, but instead gave Atlético the ball.
The boos got even louder.
"The pace from the opening whistle is ferocious!"
"Both sides are going back and forth, and it's very lively!"
"When Allegri set up the three-holding-midfielder formation, a lot of media outlets guessed AC Milan would take a relatively conservative approach at home, and perhaps use an extreme man-marking scheme on Shane. But now it looks like the three holding midfielders are there more to provide stronger midfield confrontation and intensity!"
AC Milan were unlikely to be too conservative at home.
Atlético's players had already prepared for that.
So when facing Milan's attacks, they weren't panicking.
But the real problem was offense.
Allegri had indeed not assigned anyone specifically to mark Shane.
But what Shane was facing was a defensive system made up of three holding midfielders, four defenders,
with Dejan and Boateng also frequently dropping into the left and right half-spaces to help defend.
It was an extremely mobile system.
The distance between every player was kept tightly locked together.
Like a chain, every player's movement pulled the rest of the defensive structure with it.
Under that kind of defensive shape,
when Shane got the ball and tried to organize the attack,
he couldn't find any real opening to penetrate the system.
He tried to slip the ball through the gaps,
but it was easy to intercept.
Dribbling through?
Those two chains left him no space to carry the ball.
He could beat one man, two men,
but there were still three, four more behind them.
AC Milan's players were not wooden posts. They were not going to let him stroll past them with the ball.
Shane linked up with his teammates and moved out to the wing.
Since the ground route wasn't working,
he sent in a lofted ball.
The ball found Costa's head with precision.
But under pressure from two defenders, Costa couldn't get over it, and goalkeeper Abbiati came out to claim it.
He threw the ball quickly to start a counterattack.
Shane immediately dropped back.
"AC Milan are countering now!"
The San Siro erupted in cheers.
Shane sprinted toward Dejan, who had received the ball, turned, and was preparing to dribble forward.
This Spanish player had been regarded as La Masia's next Messi.
His goal-scoring numbers in the youth teams had been terrifying; even Messi's record at La Masia was nowhere near his.
But once he reached the first team, he never truly showed that same dominance.
The shorter Dejan did have a style somewhat reminiscent of Messi,
but the technical gap between them was far too large.
Shane could already stand above the real Messi.
Against this failed heir to Messi's throne,
he certainly wasn't going to be polite.
He quickly dropped into a sliding tackle, poked the ball out of play, and shut down Milan's counterattack.
But when he got back up from the turf, he did not look relaxed.
This match was proving much harder than he had expected.
Italian defending really was...
not to be underestimated.
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