ICC 2019: 3 Reasons why Manchester United beat AC Milan on penalties
Manchester United and AC Milan battled it out at Cardiff in the International Champions Cup 2019 and while the match ended 2-2 at the end of regulation time, United won the game 5-4 on penalties. For the Red Devils, the goals were scored by Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard. For AC Milan, the first goal was scored by Suso and the second one was a Victor Lindelof own goal.
In the first half, both United and AC Milan had their chances and the latter enjoyed more control. United, though, were looking dangerous on the counter and they scored with one such counter as Rashford saw his shot deflected into the corner. Milan though equalized after Suso found the corner with a brilliant strike from outside the box. David de Gea made a couple of great stops during the dying moments of the first half to keep it 1-1.
In the second half, Milan took the lead after a whipped cross took a deflection off Lindelof's head into the back of the net. After that, both United and Milan made a few substitutions and one such substitute, Lingard, scored with a brilliant finish. The match ended 2-2 at the end of ninety minutes and the Red Devils won 5-4 on penalties.
In this piece, we are going to take a look at the three reasons why Manchester United won against AC Milan.
#3 Manchester United's pace on the counter
If one thing has been made clear from Manchester United's pre-season games, it is that they have frightening pace in attack. With the likes of Anthony Martial, Rashford, Daniel James etc, most of the goals that United scored in the pre-season came from that difference in pace.
Today against Milan as well, the first goal was down to Rashford's exhilarating pace as he kept a long ball from Nemanja Matic in play, and made a darting run before unleashing a deflected shot into the bottom corner. In the second half, when James and Lingard came on, United's intensity suddenly increased and Lingard's goal was down to his smart run inside the box and cool finish. United's quality of turning defence into attack has been on display throughout the pre-season and if they continue doing that in the Premier League, they will be a serious threat to any defence.