Lenny Joseph double gives Ferencvárosi win over Milan
Two second-half goals from Lenny Joseph earned Ferencvárosi a 2-0 Europa League win at San Siro, and they held on after Bamidele Yusuf's red card.
By Harvey Watkins,
Ferencvárosi left San Siro with a 2-0 win over Milan on Europa League Matchday 4, and one player accounted for both goals. Lenny Joseph scored in the 52nd and 66th minutes. Ferencvárosi then saw out the closing stages a man down after Bamidele Yusuf was sent off in the 77th minute.
It was an away win in Milan, and the shape of it is worth setting out carefully. The first half produced no goals. Everything that decided the match came in a 25-minute spell after the restart.
Joseph's two goals
The breakthrough came seven minutes into the second half, when Joseph gave Ferencvárosi the lead. That changed the evening. Milan had to come forward at home, and Ferencvárosi had something to protect.
Fourteen minutes later Joseph scored again. A two-goal lead with around a quarter of the match left is a different proposition from one. Milan now needed two goals simply to draw level, and the scoreboard pressure moved firmly onto the home side.
Joseph is the story of the night in the plainest sense. He scored every goal in the match, and without him the scoresheet would have been blank at both ends.
Ten men for the closing stretch
The match turned again in the 77th minute when Yusuf was dismissed. It was a straight red card rather than a second booking, which left Ferencvárosi with ten men for the rest of the game.
That is the part of the result that may say the most about the night. Milan had the extra player and a target of two goals, and they did not score once. Whatever the balance of play in those final minutes, Ferencvárosi kept a clean sheet through the period when they were most exposed, and their two-goal cushion was never reduced.
What the result does and does not tell us
A scoreline is a blunt instrument, and this one should be read as such. It confirms that Ferencvárosi were clinical when it mattered, scoring twice in a short spell, and that they kept Milan out for the full match, including with ten men.
It does not tell us how evenly the rest of the game was contested, and it would be a stretch to draw broad conclusions about either side from a single fixture. One result is one result.
Still, the facts that are clear are not trivial ones. Milan failed to score at home across 90 minutes, and failed to score against ten men. Ferencvárosi won away at San Siro without conceding, with both goals from the same player. For Ferencvárosi, and for Joseph in particular, it was a night to remember. For Milan, the absence of a goal is the detail that will stand out.