AC Milan Advance To UEFA Champions League Semifinals, Scoring Big Payday

Tuesday night’s draw against Napoli felt like a victory for AC Milan, who qualified to the UEFA Champions League semi finals for the first time in 16 years.

The team owned by New York private investment firm RedBird Capital Partners has thus clinched a spot among Europe’s best four sides, collecting another chunk of prize money of the world’s most lucrative club soccer tournament.

The UEFA Champions League quarter finals juxtaposed AC Milan, the Serie A reigning champions, with Napoli, who are poised to hoist the 2022/23 Scudetto after having dominated the Italian league all season long.

The first leg, which took place last week at Milan’s San Siro Stadium, highlighted Napoli’s confidence in possession. As a team that has often been praised for displaying an entertaining, attack-minded brand of soccer, Napoli lived up to expectations and dictated the match tempo, tricking soccer fans into thinking they were going to strike first.

However, it was AC Milan that took the lead in the first half. Just when they seemed at the mercy of their opponent, the Rossoneri assembled a deadly counterattack, which was prompted by Brahim Diaz’s brilliant play and finished by Algerian midfielder Ismaël Bennacer’s left-footed low shot.

Napoli tried hard to equalize the score, and only some impressive saves by AC Milan goalkeeper Mike Maignan denied the Partenopei, who traveled back to Naples with a one-goal deficit ahead of the return leg.

The second leg, which was played on Tuesday night before a full crowd at Naples’s Diego Armando Maradona Stadium, followed a similar script.

Napoli hit the ground running, squeezing the Rossoneri into their own 18-yard box in the first 15 minutes of the game. It was then that AC Milan’s Rafael Leao stole the show.

First, the 23-year-old Portuguese winger earned a penalty kick, which Olivier Giroud failed to convert. Then, just before halftime, he showcased all his pace and dribbling skills when he ventured into a 70-yard solo journey, proving once again lethal in offensive transition.

Leao picked up what looked like an innocuous ball inside AC Milan’s own half and opened up his strides, zooming past three Napoli defenders while keeping the ball glued to his feet. Once he was close to the opponent’s goalkeeper, he served a gentle pass to Giroud, who pushed the ball into an empty net after having astutely followed along his teammate’s run.

Napoli, who now had to trail from a two-goal aggregate disadvantage, drew a penalty kick in the 82nd minute. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, one of Napoli’s most emblematic men, stepped up to the spot but missed, with Maignan once again being responsible for a clutch save.

Napoli eventually halved the deficit with a Victor Osimhen’s header in the penultimate minute of stoppage time, but it was too late to realistically hope for a comeback.

Accessing the semifinals is worth €12.5 million in financial reward, as outlined by UEFA on its 2022/23 Champions League prize money distribution.

Since the tournament’s start, AC Milan have racked up over €80 million ($87m) in prize money according to UEFA’s distribution criteria, which are divided into four categories: starting fees, which are granted to all group stage clubs; coefficient-based amounts, which are shares that UEFA distributes to teams according to their 10-year ranking; performance-based bonuses, which reward teams for winning and progressing in the competition; and market pool, which takes into account each club’s domestic television rights and position in the table in the previous year.

The Rossoneri will now face the winner of the contest between Inter Milan and Benfica, who are taking the field tonight at San Siro. The game starts on a 2-0 aggregate score in favor of the Nerazzurri.

While soccer fans in Milan tend to be very superstitious about their predictions, they know there is a good chance to see the two city rivals battle each other in the prestigious UEFA Champions League semifinal round.