Milan and Venezia went into Friday night’s 20.45 kickoff at San Siro with the official lineups already set, and the biggest early call was Luka Modric in the starting XI. Bartesaghi got the nod over Estupinan, Jashari was left out of the starting lineup, and Alphadjo Cisse was also named from the start as Milan lined up in a 3-4-2-1.
That is why Milan Vs Venice was drawing attention before a ball was kicked. The match was shown exclusively on DAZN, with live text coverage on Gazzetta.it, while the broadcast details also included streaming on the app and website and Sky channel 214 with a specific subscription. Venezia, in a 3-5-2, had Haps on the left under Stroppa, with Adams and Yeboah among the names set to lead the counterattack.
The selection carried an immediate subplot. Rabiot was still on the bench because he was not yet at 100%, even though he was part of the matchday picture, which meant Milan had to begin without one of the players it might have wanted to use. Gonçalo Ramos was making his first appearance at San Siro, another detail that added weight to a night built around confirmed choices rather than speculation.
There was also a more personal edge to the occasion. Before kickoff, Franco Baresi’s shirt was placed at midfield, and it was the first match at San Siro without the captain. The setting linked the evening to Milan’s own history, including Stroppa’s goal for Milan in the 1990 Intercontinental against Olimpia Asuncion, but the present tense was all about who could shape this game now.
Cisse carried that idea better than anyone. He had already scored his first Serie A goal for Milan at 19 years and 305 days, and if he found the net against Venezia he would become the youngest player to score in his first two Serie A appearances for Milan in the three-points-for-a-win era, ahead of Balotelli and Shevchenko. That is the kind of detail that turns a lineup sheet into a story, because it tells you why one name mattered before the whistle.
The unanswered question is whether Milan’s selections can turn into the kind of performance that controls the game from the start. Milan had attempted 19 shots against Toro in its first match against Toro, all of them from inside the penalty area, and no other team had reached 14 in the same context cited here. If Modric can set the tempo and Cisse can keep finding the right spaces, the lineup may end up mattering for more than the pre-match sheet.
For now, the game’s significance is simple: the teams are known, the referee crew is known, and the spotlight has already shifted from the board to the pitch. Manganiello of Pinerolo was in charge, with Rossi and De Giudici as assistants, Marcenaro as fourth official, and Camplone and Pezzuto on VAR. The rest belongs to the night itself.
