Bologna Stun AC Milan 4-2 at San Siro as Mbangula Hits a Hat-Trick

By TaazaPulse News Desk · Published: 29 October 2026 · TaazaPulse International Desk

Bologna produced the result of the Serie A season so far on Wednesday night, beating AC Milan 4-2 at San Siro on the strength of a hat-trick from Samuel Mbangula — on his first league start for the club. Milan led 2-1 through two Alphadjo Cissé goals, but an own goal and two more Mbangula strikes in the second half condemned Rúben Amorim to his first Serie A defeat as Milan coach, three days before the Milan derby.

The pattern of the night was set early and never really changed: Milan had the ball, Bologna had the moments. The hosts finished with 66 per cent possession and still lost by two goals, because Bologna's five shots on target — against Milan's three — were ruthlessly placed, and because one young winger chose this night, of all nights, to announce himself.

Mbangula strikes first, Cissé answers twice

Bologna's opener came in the eighth minute, Mbangula putting the visitors ahead before Milan had settled into the game. The response was impressive: Cissé equalised in the 14th minute and then put Milan in front in the 27th, the young forward's two goals turning the match on its head inside half an hour and giving San Siro the sense of a routine home win assembling itself. At 2-1, with Milan controlling possession and territory, there was little sign of what was coming.

The warning signs were structural rather than obvious. Milan's control was sterile for long spells — passes without penetration — and their defence never looked comfortable when Bologna broke quickly. Then came the double blow that decided the match, and with it the night's defining five minutes.

Five minutes that flipped San Siro

On the hour, Davide Bartesaghi put through his own net to level the score at 2-2. Two minutes later, Mbangula scored his second to put Bologna ahead. Milan, who had been 2-1 up and cruising in possession terms, were suddenly chasing a game against a side with the best counter-attacking shape in the stadium and a winger who could not miss. Milan pushed, as they had to, and the spaces they left were precisely the ones Bologna wanted. In the 86th minute Mbangula completed his hat-trick — 8th, 62nd and 86th minutes — on his first Serie A start for the club, a feat that will lead every Italian sports page on Thursday morning.

Milan's problems were compounded by injury. Fikayo Tomori went off with a hamstring injury, withdrawn at half-time as Luka Modrić came on and the home defence was reshuffled — the last thing Amorim needed with the derby against Inter, who won at Venezia the same night, arriving on Saturday. A centre-back's hamstring, three days before a derby, is the kind of detail that turns a bad night into a bad week.

The hat-trick hero, and Milan's bright spot

Mbangula's is the name Italy will talk about all week. A hat-trick at San Siro is a career event for any player; to do it on your first Serie A start for your club, in an away win, having opened the scoring inside eight minutes and closed it with four minutes left, is the stuff of a young winger's dreams. The Belgian's three goals were all different in character — an early strike that set the tone, the go-ahead goal two minutes after the own goal had levelled the match, and the late finisher as Milan chased the game — and together they announced a talent that Bologna's recruitment team will enjoy being right about.

Milan's one consolation came in the same position. Cissé, the young forward whose two goals in thirteen minutes turned an early deficit into a lead, showed exactly the penalty-box instinct Milan's expensively assembled attack has lacked in stretches this season. His equaliser and go-ahead goal were a young player's announcement of his own, and on another night — one where his defence held a lead and his team converted possession into chances — they would have been the story. Instead they became the prologue to somebody else's.

Wednesday night across Serie A

The result does not exist in isolation. The same evening, Inter were winning 2-0 at Venezia through two own goals — a match covered in full in our report from the Penzo — to move level on 25 points with Lazio at the top of the table. Lazio's start is the best by any club in the three-points-for-a-win era, and Inter's ability to win ugly on the road is the mark of a side that expects to be there in May. Milan, on 18 points in fifth, now trail their city rivals by seven points with the derby three days away. Wednesday night, taken as a whole, was the evening the early Serie A table acquired its shape: Lazio and Inter setting the pace, and Milan suddenly needing Saturday to rescue their week.

What it means for Milan — and for Bologna

For the neutral, finally, a word of thanks is due. Wednesday's two Serie A matches — this 4-2 at San Siro and Inter's twin-own-goal win in Venice — produced between them a hat-trick hero, a first-time starter's dream night, three own goals, a disallowed goal, a struck crossbar and two results that reshaped the top of the table. Italian football is often accused of caution. On this evidence, the accusation is a decade out of date.

Milan stay fifth on 18 points, and the table is not yet a crisis. The performance, though, asks questions that a new coach must answer quickly: how does a side with two-thirds of the ball produce only three shots on target? Why did the lead, once taken, produce comfort instead of a third goal? Amorim's first defeat in Serie A comes with the season's biggest fixture next, and the derby — read our report of Inter's win at Venezia — will now double as a referendum on his first months.

There is a tactical story underneath the drama, and Amorim will have seen it clearly. Milan's possession was concentrated in the safe zones — across the back and in front of Bologna's block — while Bologna's touches in the final third, though far fewer, were all consequential. Three shots on target from two-thirds of the ball is an indictment of a front line's movement as much as a defence's errors, and the Bartesaghi own goal, unlucky as it was, came from the kind of low cross Milan allowed too easily all evening. Possession is a means; Bologna treated it as optional and won by two. Coaches across Europe will clip this match for exactly that lesson, and Milan's analysts will have a miserable Thursday with the footage.

For Bologna, this is a famous night. Away wins at San Siro are rare for any club; winning 4-2, having trailed, with a hat-trick from a first-time starter, is the kind of result a season pivots on. Mbangula's name will dominate the coverage, and rightly, but Bologna's structure made his night possible: compact without the ball, brave with it, and clinical in the few moments that mattered. Milan had the ball for two-thirds of the evening. Bologna had the game. More from Serie A's remarkable Wednesday is in our international coverage.