Bayer Leverkusen confirmed attacking aptitude after which defensive grit to see off AC Milan 1-0 at house within the Champions League on Tuesday, persevering with their excellent begin to life within the competitors. The decisive second within the match got here early within the second interval when Leverkusen’s Victor Boniface confirmed his striker’s intuition to comply with in an effort at objective and emphatically hand Xabi Alonso’s aspect the three factors. Leverkusen, crushed Europa League finalists in May, have continued their wonderful type from final season, successful each of their matches in Europe’s prime membership competitors with 5 targets scored and nil conceded.
But it was a second defeat in two Champions League outings for seven-times winners Milan after they misplaced 3-1 at house to Liverpool in matchday one.
“It’s true that we did not win, but it surely was the efficiency I favored probably the most since my arrival right here,” AC Milan coach Paulo Fonseca stated to Sky Sport Italia.
“Especially within the second half, we had a incredible efficiency. We created so many probabilities and simply did not convert them, which isn’t simple in opposition to a workforce like Bayer.”
Boniface thought he had given the German champions the breakthrough within the twenty first minute, just for VAR to disclaim him a primary objective within the Champions League correct for an offside within the build-up.
The hosts continued to push as they received the higher hand on their Italian opponents.
German starlet Florian Wirtz was on the coronary heart of every little thing Leverkusen created and Boniface was a continuous thorn for the defence.
Mike Maignan within the AC Milan objective saved the encounter goalless going into the second half.
Leverkusen dominance lastly paid six minutes after the interval when Boniface smashed house from shut vary after Maignan might solely parry a low near-post drive by Jeremie Frimpong throughout the goal-line to the ready Nigerian.
The objective sparked some life into the Italians. They began to pose a risk, with Youssouf Fofana hitting two strikes from distance that had goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky .
Frimpong had a good chance on the counter to seal the sport with quarter-hour remaining however his end lacked composure and he solely discovered the aspect netting with simply Maignan to beat.
The guests got here inside inches of grabbing an equaliser contained in the final 10 minutes when Theo Hernandez’s deflected shot bounced over Hradecky and onto the bar. Then Alvaro Morata’s headed rebound went agonisingly large of the far put up.
Hradecky then was pressured to fist away a rasping Ruben Loftus-Cheek strike on the half-turn.
Leverkusen nonetheless posed a risk going ahead and got here inside a whisker of wrapping up the match in damage time with a left-footed shot from Nathan Tella that flashed narrowly previous the far put up.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
