Coppa Italia | Milan 3-1 Roma: Abraham and ideal Joao Felix debut | OneFootball

Milan swept past Roma to reach the Coppa Italia semi-final with a Tammy Abraham brace against his old club before Joao Felix scored on an assist from fellow debutant Santiago Gimenez.

Sergio Conceicao will face one of his former clubs, either Inter or Lazio, in the semi-final.

Both sides were very active on transfer deadline day and had their new signings on the bench waiting for their debuts. Kyle Walker started again after the derby draw, while Youssouf Fofana returned from suspension, but Rafael Leao was rested. Abraham and Alexis Saelemaekers faced their parent clubs during loans, but Paulo Dybala, Leandro Paredes and Mats Hummels were back in the Giallorossi XI after a draw with Napoli.

See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.

Dybala’s free header from a Saelemaekers cross was straight at Mike Maignan, but he was the wrong person to be on the end of that situation.

Instead, when Mile Svilar parried a long-range Tijjani Reijnders strike and Theo Hernandez stood up the cross on the rebound, Abraham hung in the air for a looping header to open the scoring against his old club.

A sudden Eldor Shomurodov snapshot squirmed out of Maignan’s grasp to land on the roof of the net, while Fikayo Tomori nodded a Christian Pulisic cross over from close range, but Niccolò Pisilli went closer when his header bounced off the top of the crossbar from Angelino’s assist.

Maignan got down to palm away the Dybala low drive, while Tomori made the decisive block on La Joya from another Angelino pull-back.

Just as Roma were pouring forward, they conceded the second when Yunus Musah won it back in midfield and the Theo Hernandez pass allowed Abraham to ruin the offside trap, giving him plenty of time and space to take a touch, then beat the on-rushing goalkeeper.

Maignan pushed a curling Dybala free kick out of the near top corner, but Roma made a triple substitution at half-time and moved to a four-man defence.

Milan continued to threaten, Angelino preventing an Alex Jimenez tap-in and on the resulting corner Kyle Walker’s header clipped the crossbar.

MILAN, ITALY – FEBRUARY 05: Tammy Abraham of AC Milan scores his team’s second goal during the Coppa Italia Quarter Final match between AC Milan and AS Roma at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza on February 05, 2025 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)

Roma’s changed paid off, Artem Dovbyk winning it back from Strahinja Pavlovic and then bundling in from point-blank range at the far post on a deflected Angelino cross.

Santiago Gimenez and Joao Felix were thrown on for their Milan debuts, while Theo Hernandez’s free kick skimmed the upright and Alex Jimenez scored when visibly offside.

It was truly the perfect debut, because within 14 minutes Gimenez had threaded through a smart ball for Joao Felix to spring the offside trap and keep his cool for a delicate lob over the on-rushing Svilar.

Roma had the ball in the net on 76 minutes when Reijnders anticipated Lorenzo Pellegrini to nod past Maignan, but Dovbyk was offside in the build-up.

There was time for another debut as well, winger Riccardo Sottil who arrived on loan with option to buy from Fiorentina.

Milan 3-1 Roma

Abraham 16, 42 (M), Dovbyk 54 (R), Joao Felix 72 (M)