Rafael Leao celebrated his return after an injury break with a perfect comeback: He scored the winning goal for AC Milan in a 1-0 win in Cagliari.
The Portuguese winger’s 50th-minute strike at the Unipol Domus was enough to separate the teams and take the Rossoneri to the top of Serie A – but Inter can reclaim that spot in their home game against Bologna on Sunday.
Cagliari got off to a better start: the attacking rail player Marco Palestra caused problems for Milan on the right, especially pulling an early finish wide of the goal, while Michel Adopo headed straight at Mike Maignan.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek missed a good opportunity of his own in the first half, while Youssouf Fofana failed to finish in a crowded penalty area as Milan grew increasingly confident before the break.
Five minutes after the restart, Leao took the lead for the guests. Fofana fed Adrien Rabiot in the penalty area, who passed the ball across to Leao – whose deflected shot hit under the crossbar.
Although Milan gradually retreated further towards their own penalty area in order to manage their lead, Cagliari hardly found any way forward after falling behind and only managed one shot in the second half.
Data check: Allegri’s away specialists
Despite a slow start away from home, Milan’s quality prevailed in the end. They earned 0.89 expected goals from 10 shots, while Cagliari achieved 0.38 from six attempts.
Loftus-Cheek played a major role in Milan securing the midfield duel. The Englishman won seven of his 13 duels, including both aerial duels, won the ball back four times and completed 15 of his 18 passes.
In 2025/26, Milan is one of only three teams in Europe’s top five leagues – alongside Real Betis and FC Bayern – who are still unbeaten away from home this season (W5 D3).
The Rossoneri are unbeaten in the first eight away games of a Serie A season for the second time in the past 20 seasons (since 2006/07) – previously achieved this in 2020/21 under Stefano Pioli, when the series was extended to ten games.
This is an automatic translation and may contain minor inaccuracies.
