New Shirts and New Attitude on Display for AC Milan in Serie A Win over Roma

AC Milan has a unique tradition when it comes to their kits.  Rather than release next season's design in the summer off-season, the shirts for the next season are debuted on the field with several games left in the current campaign.

The new shirt—a sharp-looking return to the classic red-and-black stripes with minimal ornamentation—seems to have given the entire club a boost, as they looked better in Saturday's matchup against second-placed Roma than they have in a long time.

It didn't look that way early.  The Rossoneri nearly got off to the same inauspicious start they did last week against Napoli.  In that game they lost Mattia De Sciglio to a red card within 40 seconds.  This time they allowed the dangerous Gervinho to slip in on the left wing with 35 seconds on the clock.  The Ivorian fired in a hard low cross but Gabriel Paletta was alert to the danger and hacked it clear.

Just like De Sciglio's early dismissal, the early Code Red situation seemed to have snapped Milan into focus.  From then on they buckled down and played with the kind of focus and determination that has been utterly lacking in recent weeks.

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In the early parts of the first half Milan was forced to sit back, but this may have worked to their advantage.  They held their shape well and didn't allow the Giallorossi to break them down while simultaneously robbing them of their most potent weapon—their counterattack.

Milan then started to press up the field.  Wingers Giacomo Ventura and Keisuke Honda managed to repeatedly slip through Roma's full-backs and into dangerous areas.  It was Honda—who had been downright poor this calendar year—who got the games first clear chance.

Gabriel Paletta's beautiful long pass was cushioned into the Japan international's path by Luca Antonelli.  Honda maybe could have taken his shot earlier but his effort still forced Morgan De Sanctis into making a fantastic one-handed save.

Four minutes later Milan was nearly undone by one of their greatest weaknesses this year—corner kicks.  Kostas Manolas managed to out-jump his marker at the back post and his header beat Diego Lopez only to smack into the post.

From that point on, surprisingly, Milan began to exert more and more control over the team 21 points ahead of them in the table.  Roma continued to be thwarted in possession and prevented from activating their counter.  They also lost a significant piece when Gervinho went down untouched and had to be replaced by Adem Ljajic.

Despite their control over the game, Milan wasn't creating chances.  Mattia Destro was again wasting balls at his feet.  But after about half an hour the Roma loanee began to make more of an impact.  He pilfered the ball from Daniele De Rossi in the 33rd and ran the ball to the wing to deliver a hard low cross, and even though it was well defended it put some pep into Destro's step.

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Milan's focus and belief were growing by the minute, and De Sanctis had to make another impressive stop on a powerful Bonaventura header in the 37th minute.  A few minutes later Milan broke through.

It was again Honda, who took a pass from Destro—who again stole the ball deep in the attacking third—down the wing and centering the ball along the ground for Marco Van Ginkel, who had a simple tap-in past De Sanctis for his first goal in a Milan shirt.

The half-time lead was impressive, but this was a danger zone for Filippo Inzaghi's team this year.  Milan leads the league in points surrendered from winning positions this season, and Roma is still a team full of talent.

They helped themselves just before the hour, when the much-maligned Destro headed home from another Honda assist.

Adversity awaited.  Eight minutes after Destro's goal—and five after Giacomo Bonaventura scuffed a golden chance to make it 3-0—Antonelli, who has been Milan's best outfield player in 2015, tweaked the injury that kept him out against Napoli and was forced to give way to Salvatore Bocchetti.

Bocchetti had a torrid time at the San Paolo but here held himself together and Milan's defensive line continued to hold.  There were a few slight cracks—a bungled breakaway by substitute Giampaolo Pazzini and a bad penalty conceded by Nigel De Jong that Francesco Totti slipped under the body of Lopez to halve the deficit.

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But as Roma piled on the pressure for an equalizer Milan's defense, for once, kept their composure and did not make the massive mistakes that have cost them against teams like Verona and Udinese.  Simple things that they haven't executed over the course of the year—things like closing down the man with the ball—were this time executed to perfection.  Avenues for long shots were closed down, men on set pieces were marked.

The team's fighting attitutde even spread to the sideline, where Inzaghi was sent off in stoppage time while arguing for a foul to be called against Roma in the dying seconds.

In the short term this game meant little for Milan, but they can take pride in having played spoiler in at a critical moment in the Champions League race and for playing like the true professionals that they haven't looked like for a long, long time.  If Milan plays like this for the rest of the season, there may indeed be a light at the end of the tunnel for this club, however faint it might be.