Rafael Leão’s fierce strike inside the opening five minutes abruptly reminded the hosts that they were in the presence of champions, but Guglielmo Vicario was on hand to deny him. Yet, the Emopli stopper was no more than a curious spectator as Alexis Saelemaekers flashed an effort agonisingly wide of the goal, and Vicario was in action again shortly before HT, producing another top-level stop to deny Leão and ensure the scores remained level going into the break.
Having celebrated their first SA win at the seventh time of asking last time out, Empoli were lucky to reach the interval unbreached, and perhaps even luckier to get to the hour mark with their clean sheet intact, after Olivier Giroud rattled the crossbar from a free-kick. Another set piece then troubled Empoli soon after, with Sandro Tonali’s strike deflected goal bound by Sebastiano Luperto, but another incredible stop from Vicario kept Empoli’s hopes of a famous point alive.
So nearly a scorer at one end, Tonali almost allowed Empoli to take a shock lead shortly after that heroic stop, when his under-hit back pass sent Nedim Bajrami racing through on goal, but his tame effort was beaten away by Ciprian Tătăruşanu. But for all their solid defensive work, Empoli’s momentary lapse of concentration from a quick throw resulted in Leão squaring the ball for substitute Ante Rebić to tap home the winner.
Empoli had offered precious little all night in an attacking sense, but the Tuscany side had an ace up their sleeve, as Bajrami stepped forward to snatch a point in stoppage time to claim a famous point and break Milan hearts – or so they thought. There was yet to be one more twist, with Fodé Ballo-Touré immediately ghosting into the area to net his first senior goal, before Leão finally got in on the act to round off a truly incredible five second half stoppage time minutes.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Rafael Leão (AC Milan)
