GdS: Stolen balls and broken hierarchies – the questions that arise after penalty farce | OneFootball

AC Milan fell to a defeat last night against Fiorentina, but what is dominating the headlines above all is the penalty chaos that occurred in the second half.

La Gazzetta dello Sport write how after the infamous cooling break incident during the Lazio game, another bad impression was made by this Milan side because seeing team-mates stealing the ball from each other’s hands to take a penalty does not convey the image of a club with total harmony.

There is another aggravating factor too: if those penalties are then not scored, it becomes a problem. First incident: in the 44th minute Ranieri fouls Tijjani Reijnders, Pairetto whistles for a penalty, Alvaro Morata takes the ball and Theo Hernandez takes it from him. De Gea guesses right and saves.

Second incident: 54th minute, Kean kicks Gabbia’s foot, Pairetto awards another penalty, Fikayo Tomori takes possession of the ball and delivers it into the hands of Tammy Abraham who – approached by Christian Pulisic, the designated taker – pushed his team-mate away in a rather brusque manner.

The paper claims that Abraham is not one of the designated penalty takers, the names of those who should go and shoot from 12 yards are those of Pulisic, Hernandez and Morata. Murphy’s law comes into play and De Gea also stopped Abraham’s shot.

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The questions that followed are obvious: why did Pulisic not take either? Why did Abraham take one? Why did the players steal the ball from each other like in a park or school playground? Why didn’t Fonseca intervene? Why didn’t Pulisic impose himself? Why didn’t the captain intervene on the field?

For the last question the answer is clear: the captain is precisely one of those who decided autonomously to take a penalty in place of Pulisic, who is the team’s first penalty taker. There is no doubt about this, since Fonseca made it very clear after the match.

“I’m p*ssed off, the taker is Pulisic, I don’t know why the lads changed. I already told them that it must never happen again,”  he said. A final question arises, which is very complicated to answer: why didn’t the coach say ‘It must never happen again’ bluntly already at half-time, after the first penalty?