<\/p>\n
AC Milan bounced back from their Champions League setback with a Serie A victory at Sampdoria on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n
The Rossoneri, who were beaten 1-0 at home by Atletico Madrid in the first leg of their last-16 clash on Tuesday, took a 12th-minute lead against Samp through Adel Taarabt.<\/p>\n
Adil Rami made it 2-0 before the hour mark.<\/p>\n
The hosts shot themselves in the foot when former AC Milan striker Maxi Lopez was sent off 18 minutes from time for a second yellow card, both bookings for dissent.<\/p>\n
Lopez had only come into the match in the 56th minute.<\/p>\n
The win is Milan’s second straight in the league and has lifted the Rossoneri to ninth place, five points behind city rivals Inter Milan, who are fifth.<\/p>\n
The loss was Samp’s first at the Luigi Ferraris stadium since November 2 and dropped the Blucerchiati to 13th place.<\/p>\n
AC Milan coach Clarence Seedorf was forced to field a weakened side with nine players out injured, including the team’s leading scorer Mario Balotelli and regular goalkeeper Christian Abbiati.<\/p>\n
Taarabt, who took Balotelli’s place in Milan’s attack, had the first chance of the game in the second minute.<\/p>\n
His bullet strike from just outside the area forced Sampdoria goalkeeper Junior Costa to dive to his right to clear.<\/p>\n
Milan went ahead shortly after.<\/p>\n
Costa did well to clear clear Taarabt’s poweful header but the striker reacted quickly to tap in the rebound.<\/p>\n
Milan extended their lead in the 58th minute when Rami jumped higher than his marker and headed a corner-kick past Costa.<\/p>\n
Milan host Serie A leaders Juventus next while Samp visit Torino.<\/p>\n
AC Milan bounced back from their Champions League setback with a Serie A victory at Sampdoria on Sunday afternoon. The Rossoneri, who were beaten 1-0 at home by Atletico Madrid in the first leg of their last-16 clash on Tuesday, took a 12th-minute lead against Samp through Adel Taarabt. Adil Rami made it 2-0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,82],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2127,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125\/revisions\/2127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}