AC Milan and Juventus both took a big step towards qualifying for next season’s Champions League on Sunday with respective wins over Verona and Bologna.
Adrien Rabiot scored the only goal in Milan’s 1-0 win in Verona to give his team an eight-point lead over Como and fifth- and sixth-placed Roma, while Juve are three points behind the seven-time European champions in fourth place after a 2-0 win over Bologna.
French midfielder Rabiot calmly scored his sixth league goal of the season after winning possession in midfield and exchanging passes with Rafael Leao, providing the only real highlight of a largely uneventful encounter.
«The most important thing is to win and get the points we need to achieve our objectives, but we made a lot of mistakes today. We could have played much better,» said Rabiot.
“We must continue to focus on qualifying for the Champions League.”
Juve and Milan benefited from the fact that Como was surprisingly defeated at Sassuolo on Friday evening and Roma drew with Atalanta on Saturday evening. With five games left in the season, both teams are in a great position to finish in the top four.
Second-placed Milan have been without continental football this season after a disastrous last campaign that led to Massimiliano Allegri taking back the reins as coach last summer.
Allegri said on Friday that he has already started making plans for next season with Milan’s management, and after Saturday’s victory the 58-year-old once again ruled himself out of the vacant job in Italy.
“No one has contacted me (from the Italian Football Federation) and all my thoughts are with Milan: we started something together and we will continue it together,” Allegri said.
Verona’s fifth straight defeat means almost certain relegation as Paolo Sammarco’s side sit bottom of the division and 10 points behind Cremonese, who sit just outside the drop zone and drew 0-0 with Torino in the early game of the day.
Headers in each half from Jonathan David and Khephren Thuram were enough for Juve to beat Bologna and move closer to the goal given to Luciano Spalletti when he was hired in October to replace the sacked Igor Tudor.
David’s quick finish from Pierre Kalulu’s cross was his first club goal since early February and came just after a pre-match tribute to former Juve goalkeeper Alexander Manninger, who died on Thursday aged 48 after his car was hit by a train.
Manninger, who made 40 appearances for Juve between 2008 and 2012, was cheered on by fans who then loudly chanted his name after Gianluigi Buffon, Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini brought flowers onto the pitch in honor of their former teammate.
Thuram doubled the hosts’ lead with his fourth goal of the season in the 57th minute after another perfectly delivered cross, this time from Weston McKennie.
Bologna are now ten points clear of European eighth place and have caused Juve little trouble, although Jonathan Rowe should have halved the deficit shortly after Thuram’s goal when he hit Nadir Zortea’s low cross onto the post from point-blank range.
Published on April 20, 2026
