Why Milan’s Serie A title bid belongs to ‘big brother’ Olivier Giroud

As players swapped shirts and fans began to make their way to the exits at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, Olivier Giroud ran a hand over his beard and listened to an interviewer from Dazn complimenting his Italian. His eyebrows raised at the question that followed: “You’re a bit like Zlatan [Ibrahimovic]: you give instructions, you encourage, you motivate your teammates. So now that he’s back, who plays?”

It was an unexpected line of enquiry on a night when Giroud had, once again, shifted the course of Serie A’s title race, scoring the goal that delivered Milan victory over Napoli just as his two strikes had sunk Inter a month before. He blew out his cheeks and shrugged before reflecting: “I don’t want to think about who is going to play. My job is also to be a big brother to the young players.”

What more could you ask of your sporting sibling than the performance Giroud turned in on Sunday? For 68 minutes, he led from the front, throwing himself into challenges even after Kalidou Koulibaly’s stud had raked a deep gouge into his left shin. By half-time he looked spent, laying flat on the turf while the rest of the players headed for the tunnel. Yet he would decide the game after the interval.

It looked a lucky deflection at first, Giroud sticking out a boot to redirect Davide Calabria’s shot inside the left-hand upright after the ball was blocked twice at a free-kick. Repeat viewings showed that it was nothing of the sort. Giroud’s subtle step into the space behind Koulibaly half a beat beforehand had positioned him to be decisive on any ball that fell to the middle of the box.

HIGHLIGHTS | A very important win for