Lukebakio breaks it open
Six previous meetings with Milan, six times Benfica had failed to win. The seventh ended differently. The Portuguese side walked out of San Siro with a 2-0 victory a few hours ago, on the opening night of the Europa League league phase, and Milan never really laid a glove on them.
Dodi Lukebakio settled the direction of it early. Jakub Kaminski surged inside off the flank and slipped the ball into his path. Lukebakio struck from outside the box before the Milan defence could close him down. Clean contact, no hesitation.
Benfica should have had a second before the interval. Georgiy Sudakov drilled a low effort from distance that beat the goalkeeper and came back off the post.
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Kaminski turns provider into scorer
The second goal arrived after the restart, and it belonged to the man who had created the first. Souffian El Karouani delivered from the left, Kaminski met it and hammered it in. Two-nil, and the Italians needed something quickly.
Their response came off the bench. Christian Pulisic got a shot away that would have made the closing stages awkward, but Anatoliy Trubin stretched full length to push it clear. That was as close as Milan came to a route back into the tie.
Where it leaves both sides
Three points away from home, a clean sheet, and a record against Milan finally broken. In a 36-team single table where the top eight go straight through to the round of 16, opening with a win at a ground like this one is worth more than the three points suggest.
Milan begin their campaign on zero. The league phase gives them seven more matches to fix that, and the format leaves far less room to recover than the old group stage ever did.
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