February 13, (THEWILL) –Â Milan climbed to the top of Serie A with a 1-0 victory over Sampdoria at San Siro on Sunday, thanks to Rafael Leao’s early strike.
The team from the capital city took advantage of Saturday’s 1-1 draw between Inter and Napoli to leapfrog both teams, and they did it without ever being at their best against Sampdoria because they did not really need to.
After being helped by keeper Mike Maignan, Leao easily converted after eight minutes, and that was enough for the hosts, who have now won three consecutive games in all competitions.
Milan had only one point from their previous two home matches, but they came out firing and seized the lead early on thanks to Leao’s 10th goal of the season.
The Portugal international controlled a long ball from Maignan, surged into the opposition box past Bartosz Bereszynski, and calmly fired past Wladimiro Falcone.
Falcone saved a strong Junior Messi effort with a fantastic one-handed stop, and the Milan midfielder flashed another chance narrowly past on the opposite side of half-time.
Sampdoria briefly had the game in control and came close to making it count, but huge opportunities continued to fall to Milan, who could have added to the scoreline with Olivier Giroud twice having volleys and headers saved by the visiting keeper.
Relegation-threatened Sampdoria never looked like they would find a leveller, though, with Stefano Pioli’s team completing the task of reaching the peak. Milan finish two points ahead of third-placed Napoli and one point ahead of defending champions Inter, who have a game in hand.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
