United States standout Christian Pulisic reached double figures in goals for the first time in a league season after his sublime strike set AC Milan on the way to a 3-0 win over 10-man Lecce in Serie A on Saturday.
Pulisic’s early goal and 10th in the Italian league surpassed his previous best of nine in the 2019-20 English Premier League for Chelsea. The winger also has three goals in Europe and had already bettered his overall scoring record.
Olivier Giroud and Rafael Leão also scored against Lecce, which played the entire second half with 10 men after forward Nikola Krstović was sent off.
Milan could even afford to ring the changes in the second half with Thursday’s Europa League quarterfinal against Roma in mind. Roma was playing Lazio in the capital derby later Saturday.
Second-placed Milan trimmed the gap to runaway Serie A leader Inter Milan to 11 points ahead of the Nerazzurri’s match at Udinese on Monday.
Lecce remained four points above the drop zone.
On a warm and sunny day at San Siro, Samuel Chukwueze did well to cut inside from the right and beat two defenders before finding Pulisic on the edge of the area. The American controlled the ball and unleashed an unstoppable left-footed strike.
That was with less than six minutes on the clock. Pulisic almost doubled his tally immediately but Lecce goalkeeper Wladimiro Falcone parried the header from point-blank range.
Milan got the second in the 20th when Yacine Adli whipped in a corner from the left and Giroud headed it in at the near post.
Lecce almost pulled one back, but Joan González’s header came off the crossbar and the visitors’ chances diminished on the stroke of halftime when Krstović was shown a straight red card for a high tackle on Chukwueze.
Milan sealed the match in the 57th after Leão raced onto a Théo Hernandez through ball and fired it into the bottom right corner.
Hernandez also hit the crossbar seven minutes later, after Milan coach Stefano Pioli took off Pulisic, Giroud and Matteo Gabbia in a triple substitution.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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