Serie A | Milan 1-0 Bologna: Modric joy despite Allegri rage at referee

Luka Modric scored his first AC Milan goal just days after his 40^th birthday for a passionate victory over Bologna, which saw Max Allegri sent off in a rage after a penalty revocation.

The Rossoneri beat Lecce to recover from the opening defeat to Cremonese, but were still missing Rafael Leao and Ardon Jashari. Rabiot was thrown straight into the starting XI for his debut, resting Christian Pulisic after international duty with the USMNT. Curiously, Adrien Rabiot was excluded from Olympique Marseille after a locker room brawl with teammate Jonathan Rowe, and they met again with the Englishman on the Bologna bench. The Rossoblu were also on three points after two rounds, with Ciro Immobile, Tommaso Pobega, Emil Holm, Nicolò Casale and Ibrahim Sulemana injured. This was a repeat of last season’s Coppa Italia Final, won by Bologna.

See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.

Rabiot was involved after just four minutes, running onto the Youssouf Fofana through ball and forcing Nadir Zortea to scramble across to stop him going clear on goal.

Santiago Gimenez turned between three to force a Lukasz Skorupski save, while Nicolò Cambiaghi had the ball in the net on 14 minutes only after wandering offside on the deflected Riccardo Orsolini shot.

Pervis Estupinan was also unlucky not to score when he cut inside Zortea, and the right foot curler bounced off the base of the far post.

After an aggressive start, Milan increasingly handed the initiative to Bologna for long periods of possession in that first half, making the crowd restless.

Nonetheless, the hosts did almost score on the stroke of half-time, Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s header flicking on a Modric corner for Gimenez sliding in to clip the far post.

Koni De Winter made his Milan debut for the restart, and there was controversy when Gimenez went down under a hand on the shoulder from Charalampos Lykogiannis when a long way off the ball, so the referee waved away penalty appeals.

A bigger problem for the Rossoneri was that Mike Maignan limped off moments later with a suspected calf strain, so Pietro Terracciano made his debut.

Gimenez scuffed an angled drive wide after Jhon Lucumi gave it away in midfield, but Milan finally found a breakthrough with Modric just days after his 40^th birthday.

The former Real Madrid star had begun the move from midfield, as Ruben Loftus-Cheek spread it to the right for Saelemaekers, who rolled it back across for Modric to finish with the inside of the right boot from just inside the area.

Samuele Ricci came off the bench and made an immediate impact, within minutes his scorcher from distance smacking against the base of the upright.

Ricci also sparked the move sending Gimenez through, but the first touch was poor on a Fikayo Tomori cross, allowing Skorupski to close him down.

Christian Pulisic came off the bench and had more penalty appeals, but seemed to lose his balance after cutting inside Heggem.

Incredibly, Gimenez sprung the offside trap on the Pulisic through ball, went too wide again and hit the outside of the upright from a tight angle.

Substitute Christopher Nkunku chested down the ball and was nudged from behind by Jhon Lucumi, then tried to get on the rebound and was tripped by Remo Freuler for a penalty. However, following the VAR review of only the second challenge, the referee changed his mind and decided there was no spot-kick, whereas the first Lucumi push had seemed worse. This infuriated Max Allegri, who was sent off and raged at the fourth official with his jacket off before storming down the tunnel.

Milan 1-0 Bologna

Modric 61 (M)