Bologna came to the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza as visitors and left with four goals, three of them belonging to Bologna forward Samuel Mbangula, whose hat-trick dismantled a Milan side that had led 2-1 at half-time and looked, briefly, like the more composed team on the pitch. The final scoreline โ AC Milan 2-4 Bologna โ is not a flattering summary of the home side's evening; it is an accurate one.
The match's shape was established early and then violently rearranged. Mbangula opened the scoring at 8', converting a move initiated by Bologna midfielder Nadir Zortea. Milan responded with purpose: AC Milan midfielder Alphadjo Cissรจ equalized at 14' and then, assisted by defender Fikayo Tomori, put the hosts ahead at 27'. At that point, Amorim's Milan had recovered from a deficit and held a lead they appeared capable of protecting. Then came the interval substitution that complicates any reading of the first half's promise: Tomori was withdrawn at 45' for Luka Modriฤ, a change that altered the defensive architecture of the side that had just taken the lead. No cause for the change is recorded in the data, but the timing โ before a single second-half minute had been played โ is notable.
The match turned irrevocably in a three-minute passage beginning at 60'. An own goal by AC Milan midfielder Davide Bartesaghi levelled the match at 2-2, and then Mbangula struck again at 62', assisted by substitute Juan Miranda, who had only entered the pitch three minutes earlier. That goal, making it 2-3, was the lead-taking moment Bologna would not relinquish. Bartesaghi was substituted off at 63', three minutes after the goal that bore his name. Mbangula completed the hat-trick at 86', assisted by Bologna forward Jens Odgaard, and the contest was settled.
Mbangula is the story of this match. Three goals โ the opener, the lead-taking goal after the own-goal equalizer, and the clincher โ across 78 minutes of action represent a performance of sustained threat against a Milan defence that had conceded only seven goals in its previous eight league fixtures. The 62' goal is the one that matters most in structural terms: it arrived within seconds of Miranda's introduction, suggesting Bologna's substitutions at 59' injected immediate directness into their attack. Mbangula's final contribution at 86' removed any residual doubt.
Milan's evening contains a specific regret that goes beyond the scoreline. Cissรจ's brace had given the home side a platform โ two goals from the same player, the second assisted by a centre-back who was then removed at half-time โ and the structure that produced those goals did not survive into the second half. Two substitutions at 58' reshaped the team again, and within two minutes of the hour mark, Bologna had levelled and then led. The own goal at 60' was the pivot: it was not a moment Milan created against themselves through tactical error the data can identify, but it was the moment that handed Bologna's momentum a concrete expression on the scoreboard.
Milan came into this fixture having won three and drawn two of their last five league matches, an unbeaten run that had accumulated 11 points and 11 goals. That form now reads differently: including this result, the last five shows three wins, one draw, and one defeat. Bologna's trajectory runs in the opposite direction. They had arrived carrying two wins and one defeat from their last three matches, and they leave having extended that recent run to two wins from three โ a sequence that, given they had won only two of their first eight league games before tonight, suggests Raffaele Palladino's side is finding a more reliable version of itself.
A month from now, this match will be remembered as the night a hat-trick from Mbangula exposed the fragility beneath Milan's unbeaten surface, and the scoreline will serve as a reminder that leads held at half-time are only as durable as the structures that produced them.