By The SCM Sports Desk I Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026
AC Milan put on a masterclass of attacking football at the Red Bull Arena on Thursday night, dispatching Austrian outfit FC Red Bull Salzburg 4-0 in their UEFA Europa League encounter.
The headline story of the evening belonged to 19-year-old prodigy Alphadjo Cisse, who etched his name into the history books with a sensational hat-trick that left the hosts shell-shocked and the travelling Rossoneri faithful in dreamland.
Rúben Amorim made seven changes to his starting side, but any fears of a lack of cohesion were swiftly dispelled as Milan established complete control from the opening whistle.
The deadlock was broken in the 15th minute when English winger Omari Hutchinson whipped in a pinpoint cross from the right flank. Cisse rose brilliantly inside the penalty box to power a bullet header past Salzburg goalkeeper Christian Zawieschitzky into the bottom right corner.
Salzburg struggled to contend with Milan’s rapid transitions and midfield press. Just past the half-hour mark, in the 32nd minute, Cisse doubled both his personal tally and Milan’s advantage.
Left-back Davide Bartesaghi latched onto a defense-splitting pass from Adrien Rabiot and squared the ball across the face of goal, allowing Cisse to sweep home a crisp left-footed finish. By doing so, Cisse became the youngest player in AC Milan’s storied history to score twice in the first half of a major European match.
The Italian under-20 international completed his dream night four minutes into the second half. Ruben Loftus-Cheek drove through the heart of the Salzburg midfield before setting up Rabiot, who neatly picked out Cisse to tap home his third of the evening with his right foot.
At 19 years and 358 days old, Cisse established a new milestone as the youngest Italian player ever to score a hat-trick in a major European competition.
Substitute striker Gonçalo Ramos rounded off the scoring in the 72nd minute, capitalizing on diligent pressing by Ardon Jashari to win back possession and slot home a composed finish.
A minor stain on an otherwise flawless evening for the visitors occurred in the 83rd minute when substitute Filippo Terracciano received a straight red card for a tactical foul on a Salzburg counter-attack, but the ten men of Milan navigated the closing stages without further drama.
Looking at the overall match statistics, AC Milan was utterly dominant in front of goal despite both teams sharing an even 50 percent of total ball possession.
Milan registered 14 total shot attempts, with an impressive 10 hitting the target and generating a expected goals metric of 3.99. In contrast, Salzburg managed 15 total shot attempts but produced an xG of just 0.79, as only 3 of their efforts tested Milan goalkeeper Mike Maignan.
The Italian side demonstrated superior passing accuracy on the night, completing 400 out of 452 attempted passes for an 88 percent success rate, whereas Salzburg completed 459 of 505 passes at 90 percent accuracy.
Defensively, Milan won 18 of 22 total tackles for an 81 percent tackle success rate, made 11 interceptions, and produced 23 clearances to keep a clean sheet. Salzburg won 14 of 16 tackles, recorded 2 interceptions, and committed 13 fouls compared to Milan’s 12. Salzburg earned 3 corner kicks throughout the 90 minutes while Milan earned 2, with the referee issuing one yellow card to Salzburg’s Valentin Zabransky and one yellow card to Milan’s Hutchinson alongside Terracciano’s late dismissal.