TORONTO: Greek champions Olympiakos defeated Italy’s AC Milan 3-0 on Thursday in a friendly football match that launched the International Champions Cup.

The result, with goals from Alejandro Dominguez, Dimitri Diamantakos and Andreas Bouchalakis, marked Milan coach Filippo Inzaghi’s first defeat in three friendlies since he took charge of the San Siro club.

He was without superstar Mario Balotelli, who wasn’t in uniform for the contest, even though he trained with the team in Toronto and earlier in the day tweeted his thanks that Major League Soccer club Toronto FC –– whose BMO Stadium hosted the match –– had presented him with a jersey.

His absence sparked chants of “We want Balo” from his fans among the crowd of 10,603 –– a significantly smaller turnout than the 22,000 who watched Toronto FC fall 3-2 to Tottenham in a friendly on Wednesday.

Milan’s other star striker, Stephan El Shaarawy, looked sharp, even though his attempt to open the scoring flew straight to Olympiakos keeper Roberto Jimenez Gago.

So it was Argentine Dominguez who put Olympiakos ahead in the 16th minute, smartly controlling a ball from Dossevi with his chest and firing home a right-footed shot that saw the Greek club take a 1-0 lead into halftime.

Diamantakos made it 2-0 in the 49th minute, and Bouchalakis capped the scoring in the 78th with a superb blast from outside the box into the top left corner of the net.

Milan will now travel to Pittsburgh for a week long training camp, where they will take on Manchester City at Heinz Field on Sunday afternoon.

Olympiakos will head west to take on Liverpool at Chicago’s Soldier Field.

The match is part of the International Champions Cup, a collection of pre-season matches featuring eight European clubs all preparing for the start of their domestic campaigns.—AFP

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2014