AC MILAN v HELLAS VERONA: OPPONENT REVIEW

Having secured qualification for the next Champions League, AC Milan are preparing to close out their championship at San Siro against Hellas Verona, who are engaged in a relegation battle. In front of their home crowd, the Rossoneri will face a team with just one win in their last six matches, who seem to have lost momentum and enthusiasm in an extremely difficult season. In fact, the Scaligeri are in danger of writing a very dark page in their history, given the 31 points won in 37 matches. In the era of three points per win Hellas has only done worse three times: 27 in 1996/97, 28 in 2015/16 and 25 in 2017/18. Three seasons that ended in relegation.

Further complicating matters for Marco Zaffaroni's men is their performances away from home this season. Hellas Verona have only won one away game this season (1-0 against Lecce on 7 May): no one has done worse in the top five European leagues. Furthermore, only Sampdoria (nine) have earned fewer points away from home than the Scaligeri in this Serie A (10 in 18 matches); finally, the Gialloblu are the team that has scored the fewest goals away from home in the tournament (10).

COURAGE AND SUBSTITUTES CLOUD THEIR WEAKNESSES: THE GIALLOBLU SUFFER AT THE DEATH
There is one factor that brings AC Milan and Hellas Verona closer in a certain sense, if only in terms of approach and interpretation of the matches. In fact, the two teams that have won the most duels in this Serie A are competing at San Siro: the Scaligeri lead this particular classification at 2037, ahead of the Rossoneri's 2018. The Gialloblù have also shown great attention to their penalty area, an area of the pitch in which tension has been reduced to a minimum: proof of this is the zero goals conceded from penalties, a figure that if continued in the next match would allow Hellas to become the fourth team since 2004/05 to finish a championship without conceding a goal from the penalty spot, after AC Milan in 2010/11, Inter in 2008/09 and Messina in 2004/05.

Zaffaroni in the last phase of the championship was then able to find alternative solutions that, at least in part, hid his side's limitations and difficulties. Four of Verona's last eight goals have come from substitute players: since the beginning of April, only Inter (five) have scored more than the Gialloblu through players off the bench. Attention, in conclusion, must be paid to the last few minutes of the match, a phase of the match in which Verona has shown itself to be particularly vulnerable this year: no team has conceded more goals in added time (eight).

VERDI THE BEACON IN THE ATTACKING MIDFIELD, NGONGE WANTS TO RAISE THE BAR
Hellas Verona's 2023 has almost entirely passed by the feet of Simone Verdi: in the new calendar year, in fact, the Gialloblu have won 33% of the matches in which the midfielder has taken the field (5/15), for a points average of 1.3, while they have had just one success in seven matches without him (14% win rate, 0.9 average). Doubtful due to a physical problem, the number 7 is both the team's top scorer in this championship - with five goals scored - and the Gialloblu player who has attempted the most dribbles (51): data that confirm his essential role in Zaffaroni's system, especially for his ability to make himself dangerous on the entire offensive front.

On the launching pad, on the other hand, is Cyril Ngonge, who boasts the highest percentage of shots on target (42 % - 10/24) among the Scaligeri since his arrival last January: the Belgian has already tallied six goals in 2022/23 in the league (three with Verona, three with Groningen) and with a goal he would equal his single season goal record (seven) in the top 10 European tournaments, set last year with the Dutch club's shirt.

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