Allegri: ‘Milan learned a lesson in maturity, we were too hasty’

Massimiliano Allegri believes that Milan learned ‘a lesson in maturity’ in their 1-1 draw at home against 17th-placed Genoa in Serie A on Thursday evening, and believes that his side did not have the ‘patience’ required to break down the stubborn visitors. 

Lorenzo Colombo gave the visitors a first-half lead, which went unanswered until Rafael Leao’s 92nd minute equaliser from a corner. Genoa had an opportunity to snatch all three points with virtually the final kick of the game, but Stanciu blazed his spot-kick over the crossbar, which kept the scores level. 

You can see how the action unfolded on the Football Italia Liveblog.

Speaking to DAZN after full-time, Allegri explained how he will digest the final result after what was a chaotic end to proceedings in San Siro. 

“In football, you take whatever the result gives you,” he explained. “We have to take the positives from this match. They were very good at shutting us down. We found ourselves in favourable positions despite a very tricky first half, but then went and conceded that goal.

“They dropped in intensity in the second half, and we increased. The thing that we have to improve on is our patience against these low-block teams so that we don’t leave ourselves exposed on the counter-attack, which is how we risked losing this game.

“It’s a lesson in maturity if we want to achieve our goal, which is to finish in the top four. We have to improve. We didn’t have enough patience, we were too hasty and haste leads nowhere.”

Thursday’s result leaves Milan three points shy of their city rivals Inter, who are now clear at the top of the Serie A standings at the end of the 19th round of 2025-26 fixtures.

“This is an important and difficult time,” Allegri said. “We have to stay calm against everyone. It’s a shame we couldn’t win at home, we tried to shoot a lot, but it didn’t help. In fact, we were lucky because we could have lost it.

“We will have almost all our players available in Florence and we will be ready.”

And lastly, there was a quick word on goalscorer Leao, who still managed to find the back of the net despite not being on top physical form.

“He had two of three situations in open play where he could have done better. He’s not at his very best right now, but he was always in the game and still scored at the end of the day.”