Diaz fires Milan past Tottenham
- Milan: Brahim Diaz shot AC Milan to a 1-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday which gave the seven- time European kings control of their Champions League last-16 tie. Diaz bundled in the only goal of the game in the seventh minute at a packed San Siro to give Milan the advantage before next month's second leg in London.
- The Spaniard's strike was the first and one of very few real chances of a scrappy game which high- lighted the far from spark- ling form of both teams heading into match. "I'm really happy for the team, because we did great work all week," Diaz told Mediaset. "We've been through some difficult situations but now we need to look forward... now we need to think about Serie A and then we can think about the game in London."
- Milan came into their first knockout in the com- petition since 2014 with their season in the balance after a horrible run of results in the past month which left their Serie A title defence in tatters. But the Italians have a decent chance of reaching the quarterfinals for the first time since 2012 after restricting injury-hit Spurs to very little on Antonio Conte's return to Milan.
- "We could have scored two more goals, but the ga- me was hard-fought, they caused us problems," Milan coach Stefano Pioli said to Mediaset. "It's only the first leg, the second will be even harder." AFP.