Newcastle United came away from the San Siro with a point on Tuesday evening, in what was a brilliant result for the Magpies.
Sure, 0-0 isn’t so exciting on the face of it, but taking a point away from home in the first match, against such an illustrious club as AC Milan, is positive.
On top of that, it’s not unfair to say Newcastle were somewhat fortunate that Milan were so wasteful in front of goal, having dominated for nearly the entire match.
Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere dello Sport are the two main sport newspapers in Italy, and both have rated the performances they saw.
For each team in each big match, Gazzetta pick out ‘Il migliore – The best’ and ‘Il peggiore – The worst’.
It’s no surprise that Nick Pope is Il migliore. Gazzetta and Corriere both give him 7/10, which is a good mark in Italy. The former say of his performance: ‘He saves everything he has to: on Pobega, Giroud, Theo. When he doesn’t get there, Murphy saves him on the line. Pope with a halo.’
Fabian Schar got 6/10 from Corriere and 6.5/10 from Gazzetta: ‘Tough performance, like a fighter. He rejects Giroud and everything that happens. Among the first creators of the point that made the Magpies happy. The wall held up well.’
Sven Botman got 6.5/10 from both, with Gazzetta making sure to leave a little dig in after the Dutchman moved to Newcastle instead of Milan: ‘Another armoured door in front of Pope. Maldini had tried to bring him to Milan. He was needed, but yesterday Tomori swept their regrets into the stands. The Rossoneri is better.’
Those four were considered the best of the bunch for Newcastle, with Gazzetta rating the rest as follows.
Dan Burn 6/10
Sean Longstaff 6/10
Bruno Guimarães 5.5/10
Sandro Tonali 5.5/10
Jacob Murphy 6/10
Anthony Gordon 5/10
Callum Wilson 5.5/10
Elliot Anderson 6/10
The one missing is Alexander Isak, who Gazzetta decided was Il peggiore, giving 5/10 and saying: ‘In front of Ibra, his former national teammate, he doesn’t enchant. He tries to move backwards to find the ball, but Tomori always tears him apart.’
If you think that’s harsh, they gave Rafael Leão 4.5/10.
