AC Milan 4-2 Novara: Chukwueze and Okafor among scorers in final friendly

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SempreMilan

·13. August 2023

AC Milan 4-2 Novara: Chukwueze and Okafor among scorers in final friendly

AC Milan ensured that their preseason campaign ended in the right way as they followed up a 4-0 win yesterday with a 4-2 victory over Novara.

Given that the match against ES Sohel at Milanello on Saturday evening featured the likes of Mike Maignan, Fikayo Tomori, Malick Thiaw, Theo Hernandez, Rafael Leao, Tijjani Reijnders and Olivier Giroud, more of a rotated XI took on the Serie C side.

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The main story regarding the team was that Yunus Musah got the nod in central midfield again, with the attacking trio made up of new signings in Samuel Chukwueze, Noah Okafor and Luka Romero. Davide Bartesaghi also started at centre-back.

Milan had a couple of good early chances at Milanello, the first coming when an excellent ball in behind from Chukwueze was controlled by Luka Romero who couldn’t quite finish, and then Simon Kjaer missed from a corner.

In the ninth minute, the Rossoneri took the lead. A poor throw in from Novara saw Noah Okafor win ball back from the receiver and put Chukwueze one-on-one with the goalkeeper. The Nigerian rounded him and put it in for his first preseason goal.

After 15 minutes the score was 2-0, and Noah Okafor got himself off the mark in preseason. A cross from Romero was nearly buried by Chukwueze for his second, but was well saved and Okafor was able to tuck in a simple rebound.

Just after a cooling break Novara halved the deficit. A cross from their right flank deflected over to Corti at the far post who beat Mirante to it and fired in.

Two changes were made at the break as Mirante made way for Lapo Nava in goal and Okafor came off for Lorenzo Colombo.

Less than 10 minutes into the second half, Milan had their two-goal lead back. Calabria picked the ball up about 30 yards out and weaved past two players before firing with his left foot inside the near post.

Moving into the final stages of the game, Novara once again got themselves firmly back into the game through Prinelli. It wasn’t too dissimilar to the first goal as some defensive indecision allowed the forward to latch onto a ball inside the box and fire past Nava, who he had beaten to it.

However, the Rossoneri would cap off the performance and result with a sweet striker from Lorenzo Colombo. The substitute striker saw the ball sit up for him nicely 20 yards out and he fired a wicked volley that the keeper could only parry in.