Chapter 64: Vs AC Milan (5)
The tempo had shifted.
For a good stretch of the second half, Lecce played like a team that had found something deeper than tactics. Something raw. Something alive. They weren’t just kicking a ball around anymore. Every pass, every run, every shout, it all had weight behind it. They looked like a group with fire in their lungs and belief in their hearts. They moved the ball like they had been practicing for this very moment their whole lives. The scoreboard said 1–0 against them, but the way they played? You wouldn’t think they were behind at all. If anything, it felt like they were the ones in control.
The crowd at San Siro noticed. That usual thunder of support? It had dulled into something else. Not silence, but something close. A nervous hum, a low wave of murmurs that passed from section to section. The tension in the air was thick, almost visible. It wrapped around the stadium like fog.
Milan, for all their stars, looked shaken. Their movements weren’t as crisp anymore. Their passing had a hitch to it. Their shape sagged under pressure. Lecce had taken the fight to them, and now the Rossoneri were blinking under the lights.
But football is a strange game.
Momentum, no matter how powerful, is always on a knife’s edge. One slip, one moment of brilliance, and it can be gone. Broken. Stolen.
In the 74th minute, Milan reminded everyone who they were.
It all started from a simple throw-in. Deep in Lecce’s half. Nothing flashy. Calabria jogged over, towel around the ball, took a second, and then hurled it toward Morata. The Spanish striker was pinned near the corner flag, locked in a mini-battle with Pongračić. Elbows, shoves, grit. Morata, with a flick of his heel, laid it off behind him to Pulisic. The American didn’t hesitate. He darted along the edge of the box with that smooth glide of his, before slipping a short pass to Tonali just outside the D.
Lecce’s midfield swarmed, sensing the danger. But Tonali, calm and clean as ever, didn’t need space. Just a touch.
With the outside of his boot, he lifted the ball into a delicate arc, threading it perfectly into the path of Leão. It was almost too good to be true.
Leão took it in stride.