The ninth round in Serie A will be remembered as one in which the big teams failed and the big coaches fell.
Not only did Inter, Juventus, Lazio, Roma, Atalanta and Napoli all lose points, but also Jose Mourinho, Luciano Spalletti, Simona Inzaghi and Gian Piero Gasparini were sent off and will miss the next round.
Only one team and one coach from the elite gang survived that range: Milan and Stefano Fioli.
The Rossoneri defeated Bologna 2: 4, and Pioli recorded a significant milestone on the team bench.
The victory over Sinisa Mikhailovich's team was Fioli's 100th game as AC Milan coach, with a balance of 58 wins, 23 draws and just 19 losses.
It happened two weeks after marking two years as the team's coach, and less than a week after celebrating his 56th birthday. These are beautiful days for the coach, and accordingly - for Milan as well.
The win over Bologna was the fifth in a row in the league and left it with a great balance of eight wins, a draw and no losses.
Napoli's perfect season opener stole the focus a bit from what was happening at San Siro, but the 0-0 draw recorded by the team from the north against Roma mentioned that now the two leaders have exactly the same balance.
Tonight, if they beat Torino, AC Milan could even reach the top at least until Napoli's game on Thursday.
More than a decade has passed since the last Milan championship, and that is where its efforts are concentrated.
Returning to the Champions League was another V that marked, so three particularly difficult home losses are not a disaster that will undermine the club.
After the 1-0 loss to Porto last week, Fioli said: "We analyzed the game and the mistakes we made, but now we have to concentrate on the league games."
Fioli.
Good days for the coach,
"Not ready to lose"
And in the league, Milan's opening season is a team that manages to stay focused until the final whistle.
Against Bologna, they lost a 0: 2 advantage and scored the points thanks to two goals in the last six minutes;
Against Verona, coming back from a 2-0 deficit to win with two goals in the last quarter of an hour;
And in front of Spezia, she was helped by a winning goal in the 86th minute.
"We are not ready to lose a game or even end in a draw," Ismail Benasser said at the end of the last victory in which he scored.
"We always go for the win, and in the meantime it succeeds."
This approach led AC Milan to victories in many games it had never won before.
She is not without mistakes, especially on defense, and in recent weeks has suffered a plague of injuries that could have distracted her from the road.
Instead, Fioli's team proves that it has a deep roster and is not dependent on any player.
So far, in nine rounds, 11 different AC Milan players have scored in the league, with its top scorer being Rafael Lao with just four.
Inter are the only ones to show such variety, with Lazio and Atalanta having eight different conquerors, Napoli ten and Rome and Juventus only seven.
"This is proof that we have a strong staff here," Fioli referred to these figures.
"Even though I have so many setbacks, I still manage to put together a good and competitive team."
Milan fans.
Will they finally land ?, Photo: Getty Images
Milan's season opener is the club's best since 1955. Considering the blow of injuries and constraints, it is impossible not to mark the Rossoneri as a contender for the title, assuming the injured return soon and Zlatan will continue to conquer well into the fifth decade of his life.
"If we want to achieve great things, we have to show maturity and stability," said Fioli this week, and right now - that's exactly what his team is doing.
