AC Milan vs. Fiorentina, final score 1-1: Not a lot of action at the San Siro

There wasn’t a whole lot to keep the attention in the first half between Milan and Fiorentina. As seems their wont this season, Fiorentina were able to keep hold of the ball, but they simply weren’t able to do much with it. On the other end, both Sulley Muntari and Ignazio Abate forced the Fiorentina defense to work early on, but neither in such a manner that drew gasps of astonishment.

In the 22nd minute, however, Stephan El Shaarawy sent in a sharp shot, forcing a terrific one-handed save from Neto. It was offside, but at least everyone had woken up. Or Milan had, anyway. Three minutes later, they took the lead. Cristian Zapata got on the end of a corner in from Jeremy Menez, heading across the face of goal. Nigel de Jong popped up, scoring his second goal of the season.

Fiorentina may have been chasing the game, but again felt their lack of power up front. Jasmin Kurtic absolutely wasted his chance when the Milan defense broke down, but the rossoneri were well up for controlling the other efforts from the visitors.

Vincenzo Montella waited not even ten minutes after the break before pulling the disappointing Kurtic, replacing him with compatriot Josip Ilicic. With Ilicic never having really lived up to his potential, it seemed unlikely that he would do much to revive Fiorentina’s fortunes.

But after just ten minutes, he’d put in the equalizer. On the other end, Neto did well to push away a header from Alex, sparking a counterattack. After collecting from Juan Cuadrado, Ilicic put in his shot from distance, sending it into the lower left of Christian Abbiati’s net.

While both sides did their best to find the go-ahead goal, neither managed much in the way of a decent attempt. In the end a share of the spoils was certainly fair.

Goals: de Jong 25’

Goals: Ilicic 64’