This is perhaps the season where Olivier Giroud receives the most praise. At 37, he scores goals in Serie A (7 in 11 games this season), he even turns into a heroic goalkeeper for a sequence that went around the world with AC Milan, and he is still as stainless as ever. the forefront of the attack of the France team, where neither Randal Kolo Muani nor Marcus Thuram managed to really dislodge him with a view to Euro 2024. Yes, but the former Gunner really damaged his record on Tuesday evening in the Champions League, during a decisive match against Borussia Dortmund (1-3).
The Milan striker indeed had a huge opportunity to perfectly launch the European turn of the Rossoneri, third in their group at kick-off, with a penalty in his favor in the 6th minute of play. Except that Olivier Giroud stumbled on Kobel, after a weak and misplaced attempt. This is only the third career miss for the Blues center forward in this exercise, and it comes at the worst time for the Milanese. Deprived of the injured Rafael Leao, they were counting on the consistency of Olivier Giroud to get closer to qualifying for the round of 16 of C1. But he never recovered from this penalty failure.
Mike Maignan tears up on a strike from Adeyemi
The scenario of the match even turned out to be disastrous for him, since Borussia Dormund immediately opened the scoring… from the penalty spot thanks to Marco Reus (0-1, 10th). And AC Milan took on water in the second half, after Samuel Chukwueze’s equalizer (1-1, 37th). As it was clearly not the French’s evening at San Siro, Mike Maignan in turn showed himself to be unrecognizable by committing an astonishing ball on Karim Adeyemi’s third German goal (1-3, 69th). This defeat, to everyone’s surprise, qualifies the current 4th in the Bundesliga (first with 10 points) and it slides the Milanese to fourth place in the group (5 points), two lengths behind PSG (2nd) and tied with Newcastle (3rd).
The semi-finalist of the last edition will therefore need a success in England on December 13, as well as a misstep from PSG in Dortmund (already qualified) at the same time, to continue the adventure in the Champions League. “It’s a delicate period for this team and a very negative evening,” admitted coach Stefano Pioli. We could have had a completely different match if we had scored from the start and if we had been more realistic. »Olivier Giroud is well aware of this.