THE FIRST OF THE NEW YEAR: TIME MACHINE

The first game of the new calendar year has never been as important as this season. The long break due to the World Cup in Qatar will see Stefano Pioli's AC Milan restart at the Stadio Arechi in Salerno, to face Davide Nicola's Salernitana. An away match to resume the race towards the Rossoneri's ambitious goals, a 90 minutes that will inevitably leave a mark on this unusual season. The first match of the new year always has lofty expectations: in the first Time Machine of 2023 we relive five league away matches that have marked, in five different seasons, the first part of an important journey.

6 JANUARY 2000: OLIVER OPENS UP THE MILLENIUM
1999 was undoubtedly an intense year for AC Milan, rich in emotion with a Scudetto win confirmed in spring and the 100-year anniversary celebrated in December. There was great optimism, thanks to the impact of new signing Andriy Shevchenko, but at the same time huge disappointments, for example the defeat to Parma in the Italian Supercoppa and elimination from the Champions League. Against bottom of the league Piacenza, at Garilli, the Rossoneri were fifth (seven points behind leaders Lazio) in need of points to boost their season ambitions. In a tight affair, on a cold afternoon on the Epiphany, Oliver Bierhoff decided the game in the first half netting his seventh of the campaign, becoming the first Rossoneri scorer in the third millenium.

12 JANUARY 2003: SHEVA AND SERGINHO SCORE AT DALL'ARA
From 22 December to 12 January: the break between the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003 was a long one in Serie A, but incomparable to what we have seen this year. Twenty years ago, the scheduling change for AC Milan took place in the middle of an extraordinarily balanced league season: between the two Milanese clubs, level at the top of the table with 33 points, and between Bologna in sixth place there was only a six-point difference, with Lazio, Juventus and the surprisingly newly promoted Chievo trailing the two leaders. At the Dall'Ara, a real clash was staged, won by Ancelotti's team thanks to two goals in the second half by Shevchenko and Serginho. Two great leading figures, in the following months, of the journey towards the magical night in Manchester.

6 JANUARY 2004: SHEVA, LEAGUE DOUBLE
Another Epiphany, another away win for AC Milan. And yet another big match, at the Olimpico in Rome, where the two teams that had finished the previous year's Serie A in the top two places challenged each other. Capello's Giallorossi were three points ahead of the European champions, who put in an impressive performance to get the better of the Capitolini. The match was sealed with a brace (either side of Cassano's short-lived equaliser) by an irrepressible Andriy Shevchenko, who would end 2004 by winning the Ballon d'Or. AC Milan, on the other hand, caught Roma at the top of the table: a position that the Rossoneri would never leave until the end of the season, which ended with their 17th Scudetto.

6 JANUARY 2011: THE MOST UNEXPECTED LEAD
AC Milan were also the leaders at the end of 2010, even after a home defeat against Roma, which had allowed the pursuers Lazio, Napoli and Juventus to get closer in the table. The third Epiphany in our review is no exception to the first two, with three precious points that came from a decidedly unexpected scorer. That was because before taking over from Gennaro Gattuso in the 57th minute of Cagliari vs. AC Milan contract, Rodney Strasser only had five appearances (between Serie A and the Champions League) and 56 minutes played (in three seasons) with the Rossoneri's first team to his name. It was the Sierra Leone midfielder who decided the match at the Stadio Sant'Elia, as he deftly headed in from Cassano's assist 5 minutes from the end, on a day that allowed Allegri's team to extend their lead over their pursuers, after Lazio's draw in Genoa and the defeats of Napoli and Juventus. It was an important milestone, on the road to another title.

3 JANUARY 2021: NO MORE BENEVENTO TABOO
AC Milan's season will restart in Campania, the same region that hosted the previous 'first away game of the year'. This time it will be Salerno, then it was Benevento. On their first trip to Serie A, the Giallorossi from Samnite proved particularly difficult for the Rossoneri, who managed just one point in two matches. In the 15th game of the pandemic-ridden season, however, Pioli's AC Milan were immediately able to break this taboo, beating Inzaghi's team by two goals - one in each half - from Kessie and Leão, despite being outnumbered due to Tonali's 33rd-minute sending-off. Yet another test of maturity passed by a team that five months later would win a deserved return to the Champions League, the first step towards the triumph of the 19th Scudetto celebrated in 2022.

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