(Football news) The clubs play their first-ever match at San Siro after Slavia won their group and Milan advanced via the playoffs. Milan defeated Rennes in the elimination stage of last month’s playoffs after missing out on the Champions League by placing third in the “Group of Death” this season. Milan is back in UEFA’s second-tier competition.

An overwhelming first-leg triumph for the AC Milan team up to advance, and even though they lost 3-2 the following week, they eventually completed the task in France, winning 5-3 on aggregate.

Milan thus advanced to the Europa League’s round of sixteen for the third time; however, they will be hoping for better results this time around, given that they lost both of their previous attempts to win a leg—against Manchester United and Arsenal.

While Pioli has conceded that the Scudetto is out of reach, as his team trail city rivals Inter Milan by 16 points following a mixed run of results, pipping Juventus to second spot in Serie A and claiming some European silverware remain realistic targets.

Last year’s Champions League semi-finalists are among the favourites to reach June’s final in Dublin, with their attacking trio of Christian Pulisic, Rafael Leao and Olivier Giroud backed by an able supporting cast.

Alongside Giroud’s deputy Luka Jovic, Swiss striker Noah Okafor has made some valuable cameos, and none more so than last Friday, when his late winner against a Lazio side that ended up with eight men stretched Milan’s goalscoring sequence to some 23 matches.

Slavia Prague had made eight trips to Italy before their journey to Lombardy, but they had lost seven of those games, including a 2-0 setback to Roma in the Europa League group stage this year.

But according to historical accounts, Slavia has only lost one first leg in their last ten European knockout matches, and Jindrich Trpisovsky’s current team successfully won Group G.

Their 6-0 victory over Sheriff Tiraspol was the club’s largest in UEFA competition, outside of qualifying. They also became the first Czech team to lead their group, having won five of six games (the loss to Roma being the exception). 

Also read: Liverpool will play Sparta Prague in UEL