Ferencvaros strikes twice through Lenny Joseph to deny Milan despite dominating possession

Controlling the ball counted for nothing. Milan finished with 70.1% possession at the Giuseppe Meazza and still walked away from their own stadium with a 0-2 loss to Ferencvaros in a Europa League league phase match that left one clear takeaway: having the ball is not the same as hurting your opponent with it.

The name of the night was Lenny Joseph. The Ferencvaros forward scored a brace that settled a match which had been scoreless and even through halftime, even though he had already given warning signs early on with several shots that Lorenzo Torriani managed to keep out. In the second half, in the 51st minute, he broke the deadlock with a right-footed strike from the center of the box, set up by Kristoffer Zachariassen. Milan had barely started to find their footing in the second half when the blow landed. And it landed again: in the 65th minute, Joseph struck once more, again with his right foot from the center of the area and again fed by Zachariassen, this time off a counterattack that left the home defense completely out of position.

Milan, with Ruben Amorim on the bench, threw everything at the game after the second goal. Pulisic, Moreira, Camarda and even Luka Modric came on in search of a response, and there were shots from Hutchinson, Camarda and Pulisic himself that failed to find the net. The problem wasn't effort, it was accuracy. The home side fired off 15 shots to Ferencvaros's 12, but only 2 of those attempts actually tested the goalkeeper, compared to 8 on target for the Hungarian side.

A strange VAR episode

The match had a curious pause in the 76th minute: the referee had shown a red card to Bamidele Yusuf, but VAR stepped in and the decision was overturned. Yusuf still ended up getting sent off anyway, this time for fighting, in a sequence that caused some confusion before it was sorted out on the field.

What the numbers say

The stats back up what was clear on the pitch: plenty of ball for Milan, but far more cutting edge for Ferencvaros.

Our estimate of xG generated during the match, calculated from the shots taken, also supports Ferencvaros's edge in the moments that truly mattered: 1.294 for Milan against 2.629 for the Hungarian club. Those numbers help explain how a team with under 30 percent possession walked away with all three points without too many scares.

The result runs against what our pre-match projections suggested: the preview gave Milan a 40% chance of winning, against 32% for Ferencvaros and 28% for a draw, with expected goals of 1.48 for the home side and 1.3 for the visitors. None of that held up. The team given less of a chance beforehand was the one that struck twice and kept a clean sheet besides.

What the result means

For Ferencvaros, who arrived having won all four of their matches so far in the competition, this was simply more of the same: they now have 12 points and sit in third place in the group, separated from the top two spots by only a goal difference. For Milan, on the other hand, the night confirms a tough run in the competition: with this loss, the Italian side are left with 3 points from four matches (one win and three losses), well off the pace at the top of the group, trailing Ferencvaros by 9 points in the standings. Possession filled the stadium with passes, but not with goals, and that, in the end, was the whole story of the match.