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MILAN, ITALY – APRIL 26: Fikayo Tomori of AC Milan is challenged by Lloyd Kelly of Juventus during the Serie A match between AC Milan and Juventus FC at Giuseppe Meazza Stadium on April 26, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)
A careful look at the statistics shows that Milan and Juventus lost out on the Champions League because of their terrible record against the teams outside the top six.
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There had been complaints about Inter under Cristian Chivu that they struggled to win the big games, including two defeats in the Derby della Madonnina.
However, their almost perfect results against the so-called smaller sides proved crucial to dominating the Scudetto race.
The flipside of that is how those same fixtures did the damage to rule Milan and Juventus out of the Champions League qualifying places.
Juventus and Milan struggled with smaller teams
If we look purely at the record against teams outside the top six, it becomes clear where things went wrong for these clubs.
Milan were never out of the top four from Week 4 until the final round, when they crumbled with a 2-1 home defeat to Cagliari.
The Rossoneri picked up just 51 points out of a possible 84 against the teams outside the top six this season, dropping 33 potential points.
All the more disconcerting is how many of those matches were at San Siro, losing to Cremonese, Parma, Udinese, Atalanta and most famously Cagliari.
Instead, Milan’s record against the other teams in the top six saw them pick up 19 points out of a possible 30, with the only defeat away to Napoli in April.
Juventus follow a not dissimilar pattern, as their record against the smaller clubs is 57 points from a possible 84, including two draws against relegated Hellas Verona.
In this case, they had a worse head-to-head record with the top six than Milan, losing to Como twice, Napoli and Inter once.
