Milan concluded the season with a defeat to Cagliari and missed out on the Champions League
AC Milan ended the 2025/26 Serie A season with a 1:2 defeat to Cagliari at the Giuseppe Meazza Stadium in Milan, in a match of the 38th round that carried a significantly greater competitive stake for the home team than the final impression suggested. According to AC Milan’s official report, the hosts took the lead as early as the second minute through Alexis Saelemaekers, but Cagliari turned the match around with goals from Gennaro Borrelli in the 20th minute and Juan Rodríguez in the 57th minute. The match was played on 24 May 2026, and the official Lega Serie A calendar and results confirm that it was a duel of the final, 38th round of the championship. For Milan, it was the end of a season in which qualification for the Champions League remained out of reach, while Cagliari, with victory at San Siro, confirmed a calm finish to the campaign.
According to the Milan club’s official announcement, Milan finished the season with 70 points and failed to qualify for the Champions League for the following season. At the same time, the club stated that, after a one-year absence, it would once again play in a European competition, namely the 2026/27 UEFA Europa League. The final table published by DataSport placed Milan in fifth place, behind Inter, Napoli, Roma and Como, while Juventus remained sixth with one point fewer. Cagliari, according to the same table, finished the season in 14th place with 43 points, far from the relegation zone and with the important impression that they had stabilized their play in the final stage of the championship. The match in Milan therefore gained a double meaning: for the hosts it marked a missed opportunity, and for the visitors confirmation of a high-quality finish to the season.
An early goal did not bring Milan control
Milan opened the match in a way that could have foreshadowed a calm evening for the home team. According to AC Milan’s report, Fikayo Tomori sent a long ball behind the defence, Santiago Gimenez moved it on, and Saelemaekers beat Elia Caprile after roughly one hundred seconds for 1:0. That goal should have given Milan rhythm, security and an emotional advantage in a match in which the pressure of the battle for European places was extremely high. But instead of the home team establishing control after the early lead, Cagliari quickly began finding space between the lines and increasingly reaching the final third. Cagliari’s official report states that the visitors, after the initial shock, took the initiative and created more dangerous situations than the final score alone indicates.
The equalizer arrived in the 20th minute, after a set piece and a scramble in the penalty area. Borrelli, according to the club reports, reacted fastest to the rebound and scored from close range for 1:1. Cagliari had already had a dangerous situation a minute earlier, when Gianluca Gaetano aimed with his right foot towards the top corner and Mike Maignan intervened to prevent a goal. That sequence of events changed the psychological picture of the duel: Milan lost the lead and part of their confidence, while the visitors received confirmation that they could seriously threaten their opponent. Until the end of the first half, the hosts tried through Christopher Nkunku, Youssouf Fofana and Gimenez, but without the finishing touch that would have turned the match back in their favour.
Cagliari turned it around from set pieces and kept their composure
The second half began with a change in Milan’s ranks, as Christian Pulisic came on instead of Gimenez. That change was supposed to bring more dynamism to the final phase of attack, but Cagliari, even after the break, remained organized, aggressive in duels and calm enough to exploit the space opening behind the home formation. The key moment came in the 57th minute, after a free kick from the left side. According to Cagliari’s report, the set piece was won by Sebastiano Esposito after a run by Alessandro Deiola, and Rodríguez, after Maignan’s reaction to Borrelli’s attempt, sent the rebound into the net. For Rodríguez, according to Cagliari, it was his first goal in Italy and in Serie A, which gave his goal additional weight.
After the visitors took the lead, numerous substitutions followed. Milan sent Luka Modrić, Rafael Leão, Niclas Füllkrug and Zachary Athekame into the game, trying to change the rhythm and increase pressure on the visiting defence. Cagliari responded with the introductions of Alberto Dossena and Marco Palestra, and then Ibrahim Sulemana and Pape Mendy, trying to maintain energy in midfield and danger in transition. According to the home club’s official report, Leão, in one of the more important moves, drove the attack forward and found Adrien Rabiot, but the French midfielder failed to hit the target. Cagliari, on the other hand, had several chances to increase their advantage, among which the situation in which Maignan stopped Mendy in a one-on-one duel particularly stood out.
Eurosport’s statistical data also indicate that Cagliari’s victory was not merely the result of defensive endurance. According to those data, the visitors had 52 percent possession, ten shots on target and 487 passes, while Milan finished with 48 percent possession, three shots on target and 455 passes. Both teams had five corner kicks each, but the difference lay in concreteness and the frequency of dangerous finishes. Such a ratio is especially important because the match was played at San Siro, in a game in which the hosts had to seek victory and in which the early lead could have opened an entirely different scenario. Cagliari, however, after the turnaround, retained enough structure and composure to withstand the final pressure.
A lost opportunity in the final battle for the European order
The defeat had a direct effect on Milan’s final position. According to DataSport’s final Serie A table, Milan concluded the season in fifth place with 20 wins, 10 draws and eight defeats, with a goal difference of 53:35. Ahead of them finished Inter with 87 points, Napoli with 76, Roma with 73 and Como with 71 points. Juventus remained sixth with 69 points, which means that the outcome of the final round created an extremely tight zone immediately behind the places leading to the Champions League. For Milan, the manner in which the match was lost was particularly painful: the home team took the lead almost immediately, but failed to maintain either the scoreline or control of play in a match that carried the weight of the entire season.
In the final round, other matches that affected the order in the upper part of the table were also played at the same time. According to the official Lega Serie A schedule and results, Como beat Cremonese 4:1, Roma defeated Verona 2:0, and Torino and Juventus drew 2:2. Those results further emphasized Milan’s fall because the home team, instead of confirming a place among the top four, finished behind Como and Roma. AC Milan’s official announcement directly states that the club paid the price for a weaker finish to the season. That is a formulation that well describes the wider context: the decisive factor was not just one defeat, but a series of results that narrowed the room for manoeuvre in the final stage.
From a sporting perspective, the 1:2 result against Cagliari raises questions about Milan’s effectiveness in matches in which they must take the initiative. Massimiliano Allegri’s team started in a 3-5-2 system with Maignan in goal, a defence of Tomori, Gabbia and Pavlović, and an attacking pair of Nkunku - Gimenez. Players with strong profiles came off the bench, including Modrić, Leão, Füllkrug and Pulisic, but the changes did not bring a comeback. According to the official match sheet published by AC Milan, yellow cards for the hosts were received by Strahinja Pavlović and Maignan, while Zé Pedro and Sulemana were booked for the visitors. That detail also shows how much the match took on a nervous tone in the second half, especially after Cagliari’s second goal.
Cagliari finished the season with confirmation of progress
For Cagliari, victory in Milan was more than a prestigious result at one of Italy’s most famous stadiums. The club’s official report states that the team had already secured survival before the final round, but against Milan they played a match of high level and finished the season with 43 points. This is important because the final round, for clubs without immediate competitive pressure, can often bring a drop in intensity, but Cagliari showed the opposite. Fabio Pisacane’s team maintained concentration after Milan’s early goal, managed to impose a rhythm in parts of the match and created enough chances so that the victory did not depend only on one or two situations. From the visitors’ perspective, victory at San Siro can serve as a strong final point of the season and a foundation for optimism for the next cycle.
Borrelli stood out in particular, as he both scored and participated in the move for the winning goal. His reaction in the 20th minute brought Cagliari back into the match, and in the continuation, with his movement and duels, he constantly caused problems for the home defence. Rodríguez, on the other hand, exploited the space after the set piece and scored the goal that decided the match, while Caprile had to withstand several attempts by the home team in the closing stage. Cagliari could have achieved an even more convincing result in the final minutes, especially through Mendy on the counterattack, but Maignan kept Milan in the game until the final whistle. Nevertheless, the visitors were not punished for the missed chances because the hosts did not find enough precision in the final pressure.
According to DataSport’s final table, Cagliari finished the season with 11 wins, 10 draws and 17 defeats, with 40 goals scored and 53 conceded. Those numbers describe a team that was not among the candidates for the top, but managed to stay above the most dangerous zone and finish the championship in the stable middle part of the lower half of the table. In that context, victory against Milan also has symbolic value: it was achieved away from home, against an opponent for whom the result was necessary, and after a comeback. Cagliari thereby showed that they did not complete the end of the season merely formally, but with clear competitive ambition. Such an approach is particularly important for a club that wants to enter the next season with less stress in the battle for survival.
San Siro as the scene of a major outcome
The Giuseppe Meazza Stadium was the stage for a match that initially looked like an opportunity for Milan to confirm their European ambitions in front of their own crowd. But as the minutes passed, the duel turned into an example of how unpredictable the final stage of a championship can be, especially when the pressure of the result collides with an opponent that plays more freely, but not less seriously. Milan had an early goal, a strong bench and motivation, but Cagliari had a clearer answer to most key situations. The visiting team used set pieces better, was more dangerous in transition and more often produced shots that demanded a goalkeeper’s reaction. In a match that lasted until the sixth minute of stoppage time, the hosts’ attempts remained more an expression of nervousness than organized pressure.
For Milan, this match will be viewed through its consequences, not only through the course of play. A fifth-place finish in Serie A and qualification for the Europa League are not an incomparably poor outcome in isolation, but the circumstances of the final round change the assessment of the season. According to the club report, the team was punished for a late decline in results, and the defeat to Cagliari became final proof that an advantage in the battle for the Champions League can be lost very quickly. For Cagliari, by contrast, the same evening brought recognition for seriousness, competitive responsibility and the ability to play a high-quality match regardless of others’ ambitions. That is why the final 1:2 at San Siro is not just the result of the final round, but a summary of the different endings of two seasons: Milan’s missed opportunity and Cagliari’s confirmation of stability.
Sources:
- AC Milan – official match report, scorers, match sheet, line-ups and context of European qualification (link)
- Cagliari Calcio – official match report, description of the course of the match and context of the end of the season (link)
- Lega Serie A – official results of the 38th round of Serie A Enilive 2025/26 (link)
- DataSport – final Serie A 2025/26 table after the 38th round (link)
- Eurosport – match summary and basic statistics of the Milan - Cagliari match (link)