Milan Breaks Uncomfortable Scoreless Deadlock With Two Goals in Eight Minutes, Beats Torino 2-1

It took just eight minutes for Milan to break open a match that had otherwise been stuck in neutral. At the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino, the Rossoneri walked away with all three points thanks to a 2-1 win over Torino, with two goals between the 63rd and 66th minutes shattering a scoreless deadlock that had held firm through the entire first half and much of the second.

The match was part of Serie A play, and for 45 minutes Torino held up well against the visitors' pressure. Milan created danger from the opening whistle, with Cisse, Loftus-Cheek and Goncalo Ramos all testing the frame without finding the target, but the home side kept things level through disciplined defending and even carved out a chance of its own when Simeone fired a shot in the eighth minute. The score was still 0-0 at halftime.

The second half shifted in tempo once the substitutions came in. Adrien Rabiot and Luka Modric entered in the 55th minute for Ardon Jashari and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, and Milan began to control the spaces on the field more effectively. Torino had its best look of the night just before the floodgates opened, with a Simeone shot in the 62nd minute that was blocked, but barely a minute later came the opening blow: in the 63rd minute, Cisse met a Rabiot cross with a curling finish into the top corner to make it 0-1. Torino hadn't even had time to process that setback when, in the 66th minute, Rabiot returned the favor, finishing at point-blank range with his left foot off a Samuel Chukwueze cross to make it 0-2.

Torino tried to respond. Alieu Njie, who had come on in the 69th minute, rattled the left post with a shot in the 73rd minute off a counterattack, and that stood as the clearest sign of a comeback that never quite materialized. Njie's consolation goal didn't arrive until the closing stages, when he capitalized on a corner kick in the 89th minute to cut the deficit, but there was no time left for anything more.

The numbers confirm the dominance

The match statistics make clear who controlled the run of play. Milan doubled up a Torino side that could barely trouble Mike Maignan's goal.

The xG calculated after the fact from the match's shots also backs up the visitors' superiority: 0.94 for Torino compared to 2.53 for Milan, a gap that lines up with what the scoreboard showed and with the 19 shots the Rossoneri racked up.

The pre-match odds had made Milan the favorite: a 50% chance of a visitors' win, compared to 22% for Torino and 28% for a draw. The expected goals figures published before kickoff (1.61 for Milan and 1.01 for Torino, for a total of 2.62) weren't far off from how things ultimately played out on the field, even if the script took over an hour to confirm itself.

In the standings, both sides came into the match having played one game. Milan picked up its first win and now sits with 3 points, in fourth place in the overall group with a goal difference of +1. Torino, meanwhile, remained pointless after the loss and closed out the matchday in 15th place, with a negative goal difference. The gap between the two clubs now stands at 3 points, though it's worth noting this is only the first matchday, with plenty of the season still to come.

What this match leaves behind is the image of a Milan side that needed patience to break down an uncomfortable scoreless stalemate, but once it found the breakthrough, gave Torino no room to respond. For Torino, Njie's shot off the post and his late consolation goal offer some comfort, but they aren't enough to disguise a night in which the ball, the shots and the clear-cut chances clearly belonged to the visitors.