As in the first leg, Slavia Prague suffered an early red card, while Milan booked their ticket to the Europa League quarter-finals thanks to a surprise Rafael Leao in a 3-1 win.
The Rossoneri won the first leg 4-2, but El Hadji Diouf was sent off in the 26th minute and suspended here along with Alessandro Florenzi. Christos Zafeiris, Petr Sevcik, Lukas Masopust and Ivan Schranz were not one hundred percent fit.
See how it went on the Liveblog.
Mike Maignan had a strong first touch in the opening minutes and was knocked out of the way just before colliding with Tomas Vlceck, leaving him with a knock to his right knee. He fell twice from the pain of his injury and tied himself up.
Maignan stayed in position and had to be more productive for a sensational reaction, saving with his right foot to keep Mojmir Chytil away near the post. However, this only bothered the injury and made way for Marco Sportiello.
During this substitution, the referee called the VAR monitor for Tomas Holes to step on Davide Calabria’s ankle. As in the first leg, the Czech side were down to 10 men in the first hour.
Theo Hernandez had to make a very difficult attack on Lukas Provod in the penalty area and Christian Pulisic denied in a one-on-one through Jindrich Stanek.
The goalkeeper made an even bigger save moments later, when Rafael Leao was offside after a through ball from Yunus Musah.
Milan took the lead when Theo Hernandez and Rafael Leao combined on the left, ignored Pulisic to cut the defender with his left foot and head into the net from 14 yards.
Moments later, it was 2-0, as Theo Hernandez raced back and forth with Leao to pass from the touchline, where Ruben Loftus-Cheek only had to touch the roof of the net a few feet away.
Fikayo Tomori has been cautioned and suspended in the Europa League, but Rafael Leao made his mark in first-half time with a stunning right-footed shot into the top corner from outside the box.
IT’S AN EXTRAORDINARY GOAL FROM RAFAEL LEAO!
Directly in the most sensible corner #UEL pic. twitter. com/cduxSL4RRq
– Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) March 14, 2024
Olivier Giroud added the fourth after the restart, but finished well when he cleared the goal.
The match was interrupted for a few minutes due to objects being thrown from the stands.
Instead, Slavia Praha had a long-awaited consolation as Zafeiris found substitute Matej Jurasek to turn him into the bottom corner with his left foot.
Giroud was given an even closer stoppage time, only for the diving header to be turned away.
Slavia Prague 1-3 Milan (3-7 on aggregate)
Pulisic 34 (H), Loftus-Cheek 36 (H), Leao forty-five 6 (H), Jurasek 84 (S)
Sent Off: Holes 20 (S)
76′
This article was first published on Football Italia and was distributed with permission.
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