GdS: ‘The new Leao’ – Rafa aims to lead Milan to Europe by continuing away trend

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·5. Mai 2025

GdS: ‘The new Leao’ – Rafa aims to lead Milan to Europe by continuing away trend

It has been a strange season for Rafael Leao on a personal level, one where a lack of home comforts have been contrasted by strong away performances.

As La Gazzetta dello Sport state, Milan will obvious be playing away from San Siro tonight in Genoa. They will do so again on Wednesday 14th in Rome against Bologna, in the Coppa Italia final, and on Sunday 18th at the same stadium (the Olimpico), this time against Roma.

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Leao wants to make a difference and lift the third trophy of his Milan adventure after the 2020-21 Scudetto and the Supercoppa Italiana last January. The Portuguese is approaching the final act of the cup with the desire to be a protagonist, as he was in the title run-in and in the Riyadh final.

Qualifying for next season’s European competitions through league finish remains complicated, so the number ten intends to take the three points tonight above all to show Sergio Conceiçao that he is in shape and raring to go in the Coppa Italia finale.

Yesterday the coach called Leao and his wing-mate Theo Hernandez ‘two of the best in the world’ and the Portuguese does not intend to contradict his coach. Furthermore, he would like to break a drought: the last time he scored at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris was almost five years ago.

Away goals and records

In the current Serie A, Leao has only scored away from home (seven times), but he failed to score against Venezia last Sunday, in a match in which he also disappointed in terms of the performance offered.

Tonight in Genoa, in the dress rehearsal for the Coppa Italia final, the motivation will also be greater for Rafa. Since wearing the Rossoneri shirt, he has never had such a high percentage of goals scored away from San Siro: including cups, he is at eight out of eleven.

These numbers bode well, especially in view of the match that is worth the second trophy of the season. The positive trend of away goals makes Leao think positively in view of the match in a stadium, the Ferraris, where Rafa wants to end his fast.

In the Genovese stadium he has scored only once in his career: in July 2020, during the season broken in two by Covid. On that occasion (a 4-1 victory) he was facing Sampdoria, while he has not scored against Genoa in that ground.

Leao also wants double figures for goals in Serie A and he is on seven. Last year he stopped at nine, while in 2022-23 – his best year since he has been in Italy – he reached 15 goals in the league and 16 in all competitions. In 2021-22 he hit 14 in total and 11 in Serie A.

These are numbers that are not easy to replicate this season, but still one more reason to think of a great finale; five games to show a true Leao. Maybe to create a series of wins and above all to lift another trophy and achieve qualification for the Europa League.

Since he feels like a fixed point for the Milan of the future, he absolutely does not want to go a year without playing in any European competitions. It happened in 2019-20, just after arriving at Milanello, and now he has the ambition to perform consistently on the most important stages.

The Champions League would have had a different flavour of course, but playing in the UEL would be better than staying every evening during the week sitting on the sofa at home.