Next Sunday, 30th of August 2014, the sleeping Italian giants, AC Milan, will entertain Lazio at the iconic San Siro for the opening round of the Serie A.

AC Milan’s glory days seem to be stuck in the 1990s, during which the Milanese team claimed five Serie A titles, two UEFA Champions Leagues and two UEFA Super Cups. Despite of the impressive dominance of Italian football back in those days, AC Milan’s current reality is fairly different, as the team finished on the 8th place of the table last season and failed to grant a place at European football competitions this term.

The departure of Clarence Seedorf meant the end of yet another chapter of AC Milan’s history and some claim that choosing Filippo Inzaghi to lead the team this season is another shot in the dark from the Milanese board, due to the former forward’s lack of managerial experience.

Inzaghi has a Herculean task ahead of him and the departure of talented players such as Balotelli are certainly not good news for the 41-year old Italian manager.

AC Milan put up some interesting performances and although they lost to Liverpool and Valencia, they managed to defeat their rivals of Juventus for the Trofeo TIM tournament that took place last weekend.

There are some new faces at San Siro for the season to come and Filippo Inzaghi seem to know very well what his team’s weakest sectors are, as he was granted some quality footballers as Jérémy Ménez and Diego López.

As for Lazio, the team from the Italian capital city, which finished 9th last season, behind their next Sunday opponents, AC Milan, also have a new head coach, Stefano Pioli, who replaced Edoardo Reja at the helm of the Aquile.

Lazio’s pre-season was far from impressive with the team being defeat twice against Hannover and Sporting Lisbon.

There are also some new faces at Lazio this season; the arrival of the Serbian sharpshooter Filip Djordevic from Nantes and Dusan Basta, who arrived on loan from Udinese, are probably the most important Summer signings so far.

When both sides met at San Siro last term, the match ended in a 1-1 draw with goals from Kaka to the home side and from Ciani to Lazio. This being said, AC Milan might be considered favourites for the next Sunday’s clash, although there still a big question mark regarding how the Milanese team will respond under the helm of Filippo Inzaghi.

AC Milan

Stats: W-3 L-2 D-0

Recent Form - WWLWL

Lazio

Stats: W-2 L-2 D-1

Recent Form - WDLWL

Possible Line-ups

AC Milan (4-3-3) - Diego Lopez - Abate - Alex - Daniele Bonera - De Sciglio - Andrea Poli - Essien - Muntari - Keisuke Honda - Pazzini - Jeremy Menez.

Lazio (4-3-3) - Berisha - Basta - De Vrij - Cana - Radu - Parolo - Ledesma - Lulic - Candreva - Djordjevic - Keita

Prediction

AC Milan 1 Lazio 0