Milan blows past Lecce 3-0 behind Pulisic, Rabiot and Moreira

It took Pulisic just thirteen minutes to break the deadlock, and from there Milan never let up. 3-0 over Lecce at the Giuseppe Meazza, with a level of dominance so clear that the final score almost undersold what the home side produced.

The opener came from a through ball by Strahinja Pavlovic that put Christian Pulisic through on goal alone: a left-footed finish from the center of the box, low and inside the left post, made it Milan 1, Lecce 0 in the 13th minute. Ruben Amorim's side had already been smothering their opponents with possession and kept doing so through the entire first half, which closed with that narrow lead despite several more chances (De Winter, Pavlovic and Pulisic himself all had clear looks before the break).

The second half sealed it

In the second half, Eusebio Di Francesco's Lecce tried to regroup with substitutions, but the game slipped away from them completely. In the 60th minute, Adrien Rabiot doubled the lead with a left-footed strike from the center of the box, set up by Gonçalo Ramos, making it 2-0. Twelve minutes later, with Diego Moreira already on the field after replacing Saelemaekers, Moreira himself finished with his right foot from the center of the box, low and inside the left post, to make it 3-0 in the 72nd minute.

Lecce had a few scattered chances, mainly through Oumar Ngom and Amar Fatah late in the match, but never seriously troubled Mike Maignan's goal.

The numbers back up the gap

Milan controlled the ball on nearly seven out of every ten touches and tripled Lecce's total pass count, a fair reflection of what unfolded on the field. In terms of xG generated during the match (an in-house estimate based on the shots taken, not a prediction), Milan racked up 2.105 against just 0.233 for Lecce, a gap that confirms the 3-0 scoreline was no fluke.

Pre-match projections had given Milan a 66% chance of victory, with a 24% chance of a draw and just 10% for Lecce, along with expected goals of 1.81 for the home side and 0.58 for the visitors. The way the match played out ended up even more lopsided in Milan's favor than that forecast suggested, both on the scoreboard and in overall control of the game.

What it means in the standings

With this result, Milan moves to 11 points from five matches played, with a record of three wins and two draws and no losses, placing them fifth in Serie A. Lecce, meanwhile, sit on 6 points with two wins and three defeats, in 12th place. The five-point gap that separated the two sides before this match looks even wider now, after an afternoon in which Milan left no room for a surprise.