AC Milan's unbeaten start to the Serie A season is over. Samuel Mbangula scored a hat-trick on his first league start for Bologna as the visitors won 4-2 at San Siro on Wednesday night, inflicting a first league defeat on Ruben Amorim despite Alphadjo Cisse's first-half brace for the Rossoneri.
It finished Milan 2-4 Bologna, with goals from Mbangula in the 8th, 62nd and 86th minutes settling a wild Matchday 9 game, as Football Italia reported from San Siro. Bologna's first league win at Milan since January 2016 lifted them to 11th, while fifth-placed Milan missed the chance to climb into the top four.
A first start to remember
Bologna struck first. Yunus Musah was robbed in midfield and Nadir Zortea pulled the ball back from the right, where the 22-year-old Mbangula swept in undisturbed from nine yards on his first Serie A start for the club.
Milan's reply was instant and chaotic. Arthur Theate was caught in possession playing out from the back and Cisse swept in the equaliser from close range on 14 minutes. Thirteen minutes later Fikayo Tomori fired a loose ball across goal and Cisse met it with an acrobatic volley to put Milan 2-1 up — a turnaround that flattered a side Bologna had repeatedly opened up down the left.
There was a price. Tomori picked up a muscle problem just before half-time and was replaced at the break by Luka Modric, with Musah dropping to right-back. It was the latest blow in a growing injury list that had already seen Ruben Loftus-Cheek join Adrien Rabiot and several others on the sidelines, and it showed in a rotated side that had beaten Udinese only on Sunday.
Two minutes that broke Milan
Bologna substitute Juan Miranda changed the game twice in two minutes. On the hour his free-kick was bundled into his own net by Davide Bartesaghi at the back post. Moments later Miranda got down the left again and pulled back for Mbangula, whose first touch took him away from two defenders before he turned in his second.
Milan chased it. Francesco Camarda's glancing header shaved the far post and Lukasz Skorupski fingertipped a Christian Pulisic diving header out from under the bar. But Bologna finished it on the counter: Jens Odgaard was sent down the right and rolled across for Mbangula to complete his hat-trick four minutes from time, as TNT Sports confirmed at full-time. Milan had 66 percent of the ball and still lost by two.
Context makes the result bigger, not smaller. Milan came into the night unbeaten in the league, with five wins and three draws, and with San Siro looking like a fortress again. Bologna, by contrast, arrived as outsiders despite winning their previous two away games at Lecce and Cagliari — and they did it without Riccardo Orsolini, Roberto Piccoli and Emil Holm. This was no smash-and-grab either: Bologna had nine shots to Milan's eight and took their chances with a ruthlessness the hosts never matched.
So what: derby day looms
The timing could hardly be worse. Milan go into Saturday's Derby della Madonnina wounded, short of defenders and no longer unbeaten, while Inter won 2-0 at Venezia on the same night to stay right at the top alongside Lazio. Amorim rested Pulisic and Modric with the derby in mind and got neither the result nor a clean bill of health — Tomori's fitness is now the story of Milan's week.
For Bologna, this was a statement away win built on pace in transition and one unforgettable night for their young Belgian winger.
Beyond the Final Whistle: an unbeaten record built on control died in two second-half minutes at San Siro. Milan can dominate possession against almost anyone, but a side this thin at the back cannot keep surviving its own errors — and on this evidence the derby, not Bologna, is the match that will define Amorim's autumn. Mbangula, meanwhile, has announced himself in the loudest way possible: a hat-trick, away at Milan, on his first start.
Was this just a bad night for a rotated Milan, or a warning of what Inter will do to them on Saturday? Let us know in the comments.
