PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – An on-course reporter helped Viktor Hovland avoid a penalty stroke Thursday at The Players.

Not that it necessarily helped his score on the hole.

With 258 yards into the par-5 11^th hole (his second of the day), Hovland hit the shot he’s been struggling with lately – a “thin heel shot” that drifted right and found the water fronting the green.

What was unclear was whether his ball crossed the line of the hazard before getting rinsed.

Hovland thought his ball landed in the grass around the bunker and kicked right into the water. “So in my head, I’m not thinking: Oh, did that cross or not?” Hovland said.

But when he asked his fellow playing partners about the drop, neither Justin Thomas nor Patrick Cantlay knew for certain whether it had crossed. So Hovland called for a rules official.

“I don’t know what kind of video footage they were looking at – maybe the camera tower behind the green – but he was saying, from his angle, that it looked like it hit the wood, which was in the hazard, meaning it didn’t cross, but I was 100% confident it did not hit the wood,” Hovland said. “When he said that the video footage was not 100% decisive, then I didn’t really have much more of a say.”

Said Thomas: “That’s just unfortunately how golf is to where if you don’t know, if you’re uncertain, you have to take the worst situation for yourself.”

So Hovland began to head back toward the other side of the hazard for his fourth shot. That’s when an on-course reporter for SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio confirmed with the group that Hovland’s ball had indeed – as he’d suspected – found land and then kicked into the water.

“It probably saves me a half-shot in the long run,” Hovland said. “So it was a pretty big deal, going from hitting a full wedge or full iron shot into that back pin and (instead) being able to drop there, I could just kind of roll something up there. So it was a much easier shot.”

Hovland just didn’t properly execute it. His fourth shot pitched on and rolled all the way off the other side. From there, he chipped to 10 feet and missed the putt, walking off the green with a double-bogey 7.

Hovland rebounded the rest of the way, going without a bogey for his remaining 16 holes and carding a 2-under 70. However, he was later docked two shots for mis-marking his ball on the 15th green, meaning he'll be credited with an opening 72.

When asked whether a player’s word should have superseded the inconclusive video, Hovland said: “That’s dicey for me to say. I was pretty confident that it crossed the line, especially from that angle that I was on the left side of the fairway and I saw it bounce straight to the right. But it’s just such a hard issue because most of the time, you can’t 100% bet on the camera angle and it’s just really hard to know.”

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Sergio Garcia is making up for lost time at one of golf’s biggest events.

The 2017 Masters champion was forced to miss last year’s event at Augusta National after testing positive for COVID-19 at the beginning of tournament week. It snapped a streak of 84 consecutive majors played, dating back to the 1999 Open Championship.

“It was disappointing, I’m not going to lie,” Garcia said Thursday after an opening 65 at The Players. “But you know that that can happen – that’s why if you didn’t want to take the risk, then you would stay at home and not leave. So it was unfortunate. I’m not too much of a record kind of guy, but it was nice to have that streak going.”

Garcia has had a rough time in the majors since capturing his maiden title in 2017. In 13 major appearances since then, he hasn’t finished better than 21^st and has missed nine cuts, including two in a row at Augusta National.

But with the 2020 Masters being rescheduled to November and played without patrons because of the virus, Garcia said, “if I had to miss any Masters, that probably was the one.”

“The Masters is unbelievable, but it didn’t have the feel that it has in April, for sure,” he said. “Now we know there’s a good reason why we play it in April and not in November. So that was unfortunate, but it is what it is.”

Despite his recent struggles in the majors, Garcia has continued to thrive at TPC Sawgrass. The 2008 champion has missed the cut in only two of his 20 career appearances, with a trio of top-10s over the past decade.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Rory McIlroy and Webb Simpson laughed as Sergio Garcia jogged onto the 10^th tee early Thursday morning at The Players Championship.

The Spaniard, who would later shoot the round of the day at TPC Sawgrass, wasn’t late for his 7:40 a.m. ET tee time off the Stadium Course’s 10^th tee, but he was close.

Garcia underestimated the amount of time it would take him to walk from the practice range to the 10^th tee, which is situated on the far side of the sprawling TPC Sawgrass clubhouse.

“I thought I had plenty of time. Obviously I left the range at 7:35, I was teeing off at 7:40 so I figured it's going to take me probably two, three minutes at most to get to 10,” Garcia said.  “I don't know if the clock on the range was behind or something, but when I got to the putting green just like 50 yards short of 10 I kind of looked at it and the sun was coming up so I couldn't see if it was 7:38 or 7:39 but just in case I just took a little stroll, made sure that I got there before it turned to [7:40].”

The rushed start didn’t impact Garcia’s play. He made the turn at 3 under thanks to an eagle at the par-5 16^th hole and finished his day birdie-birdie-eagle for the early lead at 7 under par and his best round at TPC Sawgrass since 2013.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Even with the game’s most surreal mulligan Rory McIlroy’s title defense still appears doomed.

The 2019 Players Championship winner struggled to an eventful 79 on Day 1 at TPC Sawgrass. Only six players from the morning wave posted worse scores and he’ll begin the second round at least 14 shots off the lead.

It was a nightmare start for McIlroy, who began his round on No. 10 with a drive that sailed left of the fairway and into a wild area on his way to a double-bogey 6.

“It’s very hard [to recover from a bad start], especially when you're trying to figure it out as you go along on course, right?” said McIlroy, whose first-round 79 is his worst score at the PGA Tour’s flagship event. “You're trying to figure it out but you still know you're not really sure where the shots are coming from and then it's sort of, as I said earlier in the week, it's hard to at least to try to eliminate one side of the golf course, basically.”

Things went from bad to worse at the 18^th hole when he hit two shots into the lake left of the fairway - his drive and his third shot - and three-putted from 60 feet for a quadruple-bogey 8.

McIlroy’s original title defense at last year’s Players Championship also got off to a bad start and he needed to finish with three consecutive birdies for an even-par 72 before the event was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

His second nine on Thursday was just as eventful with three birdies and two bogeys just after the turn, and the final haymaker was a bogey at the par-5 ninth hole after three-putting from 27 feet.

“This course, you don't have to be that far off to get penalized a lot. It happens,” said Sergio Garcia, who was paired with McIlroy and shot a first-round 65 for the early lead. “Just a little bit off and just missed a couple of birdies, feels like you're not making any ground, you try to force things a little bit and, obviously, unfortunately for him it bit him a little bit.”

McIlroy’s 7-over card matched his worst start in a Tour event since the ’19 Open Championship and follows a closing 76 last Sunday at Bay Hill, which prompted him to suggest it might be time for a change.

“I certainly didn't mean like a change of personnel, per se. I think more a change in philosophy or maybe what I'm trying to work on, maybe going in a slightly different direction,” he clarified earlier this week. “I think there's some things that I'm working on that haven't quite bedded in or I'm struggling to grasp what I'm trying to do, so that's sort of what I meant, talking about going in a different direction.”

Byeong Hun An hit three shots in the water on the par-3 17th during the opening round of The Players Championship. He ultimately carded an 11, the second-highest score ever recorded at the island-green hole (12, Bob Tway, 2005).

An wasn't alone in his struggles on No. 17 – Kevin Na hit three in the water and withdrew after the round – but he may have been the only one to find humor in it.

An also went on to make double bogey at the par-4 18th hole, shooting 11-over 83.

Arsenal needed a pair of late goals to secure a 3-1 victory over a resilient Olympiakos side in their Europa League round of 16, first-leg tie in Greece.

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Arsenal took the lead on 34 minutes when Real Madrid loanee Martin Odegaard scored an absolute screamer from long range to open his Gunners account to stake the visitors to a half-time lead.

The teams were back on level terms shortly before the hour mark after a poor Dani Ceballos giveaway allowed Youssef El Arabi to pick up the ball and shoot past Bernd Leno from distance to make it 1-1.

Hector Bellerin made a last-gasp intervention which denied El Arabi a second goal and it turned out to be a pivotal moment as Arsenal finished strongly.

Arsenal's Gabriel climbed the ladder to head a corner kick back over Olympiakos' Jose Sa and into the netting at the far post to give Mikel Arteta's team the lead again.

Then substitute Mohamed Elneny scored a stunner of his own just after coming off the bench with a blasted, swerving shot from well outside the penalty area to secure the win and give his team a decided advantage with three away goals in the first leg.

The two teams will meet for the decisive second leg in London next Thursday.

Manchester United allowed a late away goal to draw 1-1 with AC Milan in their Europa League last-16 first-leg tie at Old Trafford.

Amad Diallo scored his first goal with the United senior side in the 50th minute but his performance was trumped by a Simon Kjaer header seconds before the final whistle.

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The 18-year-old Diallo, who joined the club from Atalanta in January, had made headlines with his displays with the United Under-23 side and made an immediate impression after coming on as a second-half substitute on Thursday, rising to guide a well-placed header out of the reach of Gianluigi Donnarumma in the 50th minute.

The tally was the Ivorian's first attempt at goal for United and made him the youngest non-British player to ever score in major European competition for the club.

United, who saw an 11th-minute Franck Kessie goal ruled out for handball by a VAR review, looked set to survive the match without allowing a critical away goal, but Kjaer lost his marker and powered his stoppage-time header hard and past Dean Henderson to give Milan a slight advantage heading into the second leg.

Speaking to BT Sport after the match, Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said Kjaer's goal will make the return leg more difficult.

"That makes it harder but it was always going to be down to the second game," Solskjaer said. "Henderson can save it of course, but we should have attacked the ball.

"We were a long way off it today. We were too slow with the possession, it is sometimes hard off the back of a game like Manchester City."

On Diallo's performance, Solskjaer added: "Diallo is creative, plays with freedom. Amad a nice goal, he still has loads to learn and will be better for that."

The return leg will take place next Thursday at the San Siro.

United States Under-23 manager Jason Kreis has named his 20-player roster for the CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying Championship.

The players were selected from a 28-man training camp roster that has been practicing in Guadalajara, Mexico since the start of this month. Players can be added to replace an injured player up until March 17.

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The U.S. opens the tournament against Costa Rica on March 18, followed by a match against the Dominican Republic three days later. The group stage finale will see the U.S. go up against rivals Mexico on March 24. The top two finishers in the group will advance to the semifinals. The two semifinal winners will qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.

"We know that qualifying will be a challenge, but it's a challenge that we're ready for. We'll need all 20 players on this roster to contribute for us to achieve our ultimate goal of qualifying for the Olympics," Kreis said. "We've had a productive training camp in Guadalajara and our players are hungry for the opportunity to compete. After starting this journey nearly two years ago, we're excited to get started with the tournament."

The roster contains 11 players who have made appearances with the senior national team, including six -- San Jose Earthquakes midfielder Jackson Yueill, Colorado Rapids defender Sam Vines, FC Dallas forward Jesus Ferreira, Colorado Rapids midfielder Jonathan Lewis, Orlando City midfielder Andres Perea, and Real Salt Lake defender Aaron Herrera -- who took part in the 7-0 U.S. win over Trinidad & Tobago in January. The roster also contains 10 players who have made the final roster at a FIFA Youth World Cup.

CF Montreal midfielder Djordje Mihailovic has the most caps at U23 level with five, having captained the side three times. Yueill has the most caps at senior level with nine.

The Olympic qualifying tournament was originally scheduled for March 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Players born on or after Jan. 1, 1997 are age-eligible for the competition and Kreis selected players from five different birth years: nine born in 1997, three born in 1998, one born in 1999, three born in 2000 and four born in 2001.

CONCACAF MEN'S OLYMPIC QUALIFYING CHAMPIONSHIP ROSTER BY POSITION (CLUB; HOMETOWN):

GOALKEEPERS (3):Matt Freese (Philadelphia Union; Wayne, Pa.), JT Marcinkowski (San Jose Earthquakes, Alamo, Calif.), David Ochoa (Real Salt Lake; Oxnard, Calif.)

DEFENDERS (6): Julian Araujo (LA Galaxy; Lompoc, Calif.), Justen Glad (Real Salt Lake; Tucson, Ariz.), Aaron Herrera (Real Salt Lake; Las Cruces, N.M.), Henry Kessler (New England Revolution; New York, N.Y.), Mauricio Pineda (Chicago Fire FC; Bolingbrook, Ill.), Sam Vines (Colorado Rapids; Colorado Springs, Colo.)

MIDFIELDERS (7): Johnny Cardoso (Internacional/BRA; Denville, N.J.), Hassani Dotson (Minnesota United FC; Federal Way, Wash.), Ulysses Llanez (Heerenveen/NED; Lynwood, Calif.), Djordje Mihailovic (CF Montreal/CAN; Jacksonville, Fla.), Andrés Perea(Orlando City SC; Medellin, Colombia), Sebastian Saucedo (UNAM Pumas/MEX; Park City, Utah), Jackson Yueill (San Jose Earthquakes; Bloomington, Minn.)

FORWARDS (4): Jesús Ferreira (FC Dallas; McKinney, Texas), Jonathan Lewis (Colorado Rapids; Plantation, Fla.), Benji Michel (Orlando City SC; Orlando, Fla.), Sebastian Soto (Norwich City/ENG; San Diego, Calif.)

In the summer of 2018, Juventus was enjoying an unprecedented domestic run. The Bianconeri racked up 95 points in Serie A play to win their seventh consecutive league crown, and they destroyed AC Milan 4-0 to win their fourth consecutive Coppa Italia.

Paulo Dybala, 24 years old, was emerging as one of the best young strikers in the world, recording 22 goals and five assists in league play. Veteran Gonzalo Higuain added 16 and six. Creation was coming from everywhere -- new winger Douglas Costa had 12 league assists, and six other players recorded at least four -- and the defense was still prototypical Juve, allowing a league-low 24 goals in 38 games.

And yet, the restlessness was overwhelming. For all their domestic success, Juve had consistently fallen just short in the Champions League, a tournament they hadn't won in more than 20 years. In 2015, they beat Cristiano Ronaldo's Real Madrid, but lost in the finals to Leo Messi's Barca. In 2017, they pounded Barca, but lost 4-1 to Real Madrid in the finals. In 2018, they finished second to Barca in group play, then fell in the quarterfinals to Real Madrid.

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It was an albatross even during extraordinary success, and in a bold attempt to solve the problem, the club used pretty simple logic: if winning the Champions League requires either Ronaldo or Messi -- one of their clubs had won five straight titles and seven of the last 10 -- then it was time to go get one of them. In both transfer fees to Real Madrid and salary, they decided to invest nearly $400 million for the then-33-year-old Ronaldo.

In the nearly three years since:

- Their Serie A streak has continued ... for now. Their point total fell to 90 in 2018-19 and 83 in a narrow win last season, and they're currently on pace for 79 and a third-place finish.

- Their Coppa Italia streak ended with a quarterfinal loss in 2019, and they lost in the finals in 2020.

- They were eliminated from the Champions League in the quarterfinals in 2019 and in the round of 16 in both 2020 and 2021. Bad luck in the draw? No. Instead of losing to Real Madrid or Barca or Bayern Munich, they've fallen to Ajax (2019), Lyon (2020) and now Porto (2021).

It's safe to say this hasn't worked out as planned. Instead of unlocking past glory, Juve have just gotten older, more expensive and a little bit worse. They've found themselves stuck between win-now mode and a rebuild, and their biggest issue is one that might be hard to solve with their best player remaining on the roster.

Ronaldo is doing what he's paid to do

Since Ronaldo signed with Juve, here's the list of players who have produced more goals than his 86 in "Big Five" league play and UEFA competitions: Bayern's Robert Lewandowski and Messi. That's it. If we're looking at combined goals and assists, it's Messi, Lewandowski and PSG's Kylian Mbappe.

Ronaldo is now merely one of the best goal scorers in the world, and while his Ballon d'Or-winning days might be over, he's also 36 and still in the best-in-the-world conversation.

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This year is almost certainly his best yet in Turin. He's on pace for about 30 league goals and five assists, one year after producing 31 and five, but 12 of last season's goals came from the penalty spot. This year, that number's down to four; he's on pace for 24 non-penalty goals, his most since 2016 in Madrid, and his 0.136 xG per non-penalty shot is his highest average on record.

Ronaldo is picking his spots better than ever and putting the ball in the net. Overall, Juve is averaging 2.04 goals per match, its second-best rate in the last seven seasons. Granted, league-leading Inter are averaging 2.42, but offense might not be Juve's biggest issue.

The possession game requires pressure

Despite the "win-now" move of signing Ronaldo, Juve have also spent the past couple of years attempting to modernize its footballing philosophy. Maurizio Sarri replaced Massimiliano Allegri in 2019-20, but he didn't perform to everyone's liking, so the club hired first-time manager and former Juve midfielder Andrea Pirlo to implement his beautiful, possession-based vision.

As Gab Marcotti noted, you probably don't hire a first-time manager if you're only thinking about the short term, and it doesn't immediately appear as if Pirlo will get sacked for either his team's Champions League failure or the impending end of Juve's Scudetto streak.

It probably helps Pirlo's cause that you can see his vision mostly coming to life. If we compare their league stats to those of the rest of the top 20 in FiveThirtyEight's latest club soccer rankings -- a list that includes about 16 or so teams with a professed possession vision -- we see that they get most of the basics right.

- Possession: Among these teams, Juve rank fourth in average possession time (28.8 seconds), sixth in average passes per possession (6.8) and sixth in pass completion rate into the attacking third (76.0%). They attempt few long passes (8.1% of all passes, fourth) but complete the ones they try (64.0% completion rate, second).

- Offensive quality: They rank second in average shots per possession (0.19) and fifth in xG per shot (0.14).

- Overall quality: Most importantly, they rank seventh among this group in goals scored (2.04) and eighth in goals allowed (0.84).

This has all happened mostly without Dybala, who has logged only 646 minutes in 11 league matches because of thigh problems, then an MCL injury. After struggling to integrate with Ronaldo in 2018-19, Dybala improved in his new complementary role, recording 11 goals and six assists in 2019-20; in 2020-21, he has only two and two. His return would offer an already solid attack a little bit of extra pop.

So what are the problems, then? Why are they fielding what will likely end up their least successful overall team in a decade? Two things, perhaps: poor fortune and poor pressure.

Few have enjoyed more close-game success than Juve through the years. Antonio Conte's 2013-14 squad averaged 2.67 points per game in matches decided by zero or one goals, a level of success that puts even last year's Liverpool (2.50) to shame. That was unsustainable even for a good team, but Juve have averaged at least 1.83 points in such matches every year since. They were at 2.14 last year.

This year: 1.11 points per close game, 12th overall in Serie A and by far the lowest among the league's top nine teams. They've played in nine games decided by zero or one goals -- one win, one loss and seven draws. With more normal close-game fortune (say, 2 points per game), they'd be two points back of Inter at the moment instead of 10.

Close-game performance is a regression factor of sorts: too much success is a sign of impending regression and vice versa. Juve's average will progress toward the mean at some point, even if it's already probably done too much damage to keep the Scudetto streak alive.

It's not all poor fortune, though. While the overall defensive numbers are fine, they've kept only eight clean sheets in league play and are on pace for about 12 for the season. They achieved this 17 times in Allegri's last season, 22 the year before Ronaldo's arrival. Six of their draws have come via a 1-1 score, the seventh 2-2; it's fair to assume some of those would have been 1-0 or 2-1 in previous seasons.

It's always going to be tricky transitioning from a more compact and standard defensive structure, to the riskier high defensive line deployed by most high-level possession teams. Typically, this approach results in teams allowing low shot quantity because the ball spends a lot of time far away from your defensive third -- either you're in possession of it on your opponent's side of the field, or your opponent takes the ball back and you engage in counter-pressing. When opponents break the pressure and engage in a solid counter-attack, it can produce occasionally high shot quality (as measured by xG per shot), but you don't allow many shots overall.

Juve, on the other hand, allows more shots per possession (0.13) than anyone in FiveThirtyEight's top 20 besides Tottenham Hotspur. The best teams in the world typically average 0.10 or lower; Manchester City currently allows 0.08, which results in about five fewer total shots allowed per match than Juventus.

Granted, Juve don't allow high-quality chances (their 0.10 xG per shot allowed is the best among these 20 teams), but when you combine this with the fact that their opponents only lose 34.6 possessions per game from their defensive third (second-lowest among this 20) and finish 39% of their possessions in Juve's attacking third (third-most), you start to realize that Juve simply do not pressure the ball the way that the best possession teams do.

Of course, this isn't on Ronaldo, because you do not sign Ronaldo to pressure the ball. That's never been his game. He has not averaged more than 2.2 ball recoveries or 4.1 total defensive interventions (ball recoveries, tackles, interceptions, clearances, blocked shots, blocked crosses, aerials won in the defensive third) per 90 at any point in the past eight seasons. This year's averages of 2.1 and 3.2 are right in line with expectations.

Of course, Lewandowski isn't much for ball recoveries either, but he's got Alphonso Davies, Leon Goretzka and Joshua Kimmich (combined: 29.4 ball recoveries per 90, 4.3 in the attacking third) around him for that. Mbappe has Idrissa Gueye, Rafinha and Marco Verratti (24.0 and 2.5, respectively). Inter's Romelu Lukaku has Arturo Vidal and Nicolo Barella (13.5, 1.9).

Yet Ronaldo doesn't have nearly as many true "havoc creators" around him. Rodrigo Betancur, Danilo and Matthijs de Ligt (combined: 21.6, 0.6) are solid in this regard but don't play particularly far up the pitch. Arthur (7.5, 1.1) can pressure the ball at all levels but has battled injuries for the past three months and has produced nothing offensively: he averaged 0.46 goals and assists per 90 at Barcelona last season, but is currently at 0.10 this season. Whether Ronaldo is in black and white next year or not -- he's got a year left on his contract, and if they tried to sell, there wouldn't be many takers given the financial conditions in world soccer -- it would behoove the club to find a "chaos agent" to add to the mix.

Lo! A youth movement emerges

In a way, you could view the Ronaldo signing as the intended end to a cycle. Since about 2014-15, the Juve squad has been on the older side: among players logging at least 1,000 minutes in league play between 2014-15 and 2019-20, only an average of 3.3 were 24 years old or younger, while 6.8 were 30 or older. A lot of these 30-and-older guys were really good, of course, but landing Ronaldo for one final run at glory before blowing the roster up might make sense in some way.

Just as that "run of glory" never really commenced, though, Juve also haven't waited until Ronaldo's departure to begin the inevitable youth movement. Over the past two years, the club has sent away 30-and-older stars Gonzalo Higuain, Blaise Matuidi, Mario Mandzukic, Miralem Pjanic and (via loan) Douglas Costa while bringing in the following players:

- Defenders Matthijs de Ligt (21) and Merih Demiral (23) from Ajax and Sassuolo, respectively
- Midfielders Federico Chiesa (23), Arthur (23), Weston McKennie (22) and Adrien Rabiot (25) from Fiorentina (on a loan-to-buy deal), Barcelona, Schalke 044 and PSG
- Forward Dejan Kulusevski (20) from Atalanta

That's a lot of fun, young talent in three transfer windows.

You can currently see a balancing act taking place. Juve's top four minutes earners in league play are all 29 or older, and that doesn't include Ronaldo or surging 32-year old fullback Juan Cuadrado, who was, for my money, the best player on the pitch against Porto on Tuesday.

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At the same time, eight players currently 24 or younger are on pace for 1,000+ minutes. Chiesa and Kulusevski lead the team in chances created (McKennie is seventh), Betancur and de Ligt are second and fourth, respectively, in ball recoveries (McKennie is seventh again), Demiral has been key in moving the ball between defensive lines toward midfield (93% completion rate to the middle third), and Arthur, de Ligt and McKennie have all thrived in moving the ball from the middle third to the attacking third.

(A word on McKennie: the U.S. star has truly been a jack of all trades in the middle of the field, not only progressing the ball and creating occasional offense, but also winning 54% of his duels, 60% of his aerials and 65% of his tackles in the middle third.)

Dybala is still only 27 and has prime years remaining if or when he can return to full strength, and other key pieces like forward Alvaro Morata (28 years old) and fullback Danilo (29) aren't exactly ancient. They still need another "chaos agent" to win the ball, and goal scorer to account for Ronaldo's eventual departure, but they seem to have a lot of what they need if they can remain patient and keep these young players on proper developmental trajectories.

"Patience" is a new word quite a few mega-clubs have had to learn over the past year. In recent history, talking about Juve required a contradiction between referencing a positive present and an unclear future; now it appears it's the polar opposite. That might mean fewer trophies in the near future, but perhaps it will help the next big run at glory bear more fruit.

MANCHESTER, England -- In a week that has seen a sharp focus on how Manchester United buy their players, it looks like they have pulled off a coup in signing Amad Diallo.

A day after the club appointed John Murtough as football director and Darren Fletcher as technical director in part to help with recruitment at Old Trafford, the 18-year-old stepped off the bench to score an outrageous goal as United drew 1-1 with Milan in the Europa League.

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It was just Diallo's third appearance after arriving from Atalanta in January but the confidence with which he flicked the ball over Milan goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma with his head suggested he is quite at home at this level.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been easing him in gently but it may not be possible for much longer. A Premier League debut cannot be too far away, particularly if the ankle injury which ruled out Marcus Rashford does not improve soon. Anthony Martial has also been added to the injury list after limping off here with a hip problem.

It was a shame for Diallo that his big night was spoiled by Simon Kjaer's equaliser in stoppage time but Solskjaer had to accept afterwards it was deserved. "We were a long way off," he said.

"Possession wise it was 50-50 but we were a bit too slow with the possession. It's sometimes hard on the back of a game like we had [against Manchester City] but that's the learning that we have to get into ourselves and we have to perform every single week because we are playing against good teams and these are definitely a good team.

"Very disappointed to concede with one of the last kicks of the game but probably a draw is a fair result."

Solskjaer wasn't banking on needing Diallo at half-time but United were so poor in the first 45 minutes, it was no surprise to see the teenager warming up at the break.

United's first half was summed up by Harry Maguire. First, he was hit in the head by Alex Telles' goal-bound free kick and then a minute later somehow managed to hit the post from six inches when it was easier to turn Telles' corner into the net at the back post. The look of disbelief on Maguire's face was proof of exactly how bad a miss it was but it could also have been the look on Solskjaer's face as he stood in the dressing room at half-time trying to explain a first half which Milan dominated.

Franck Kessie had the ball in the net twice in the opening 10 minutes only for the first to be disallowed by the linesman's flag, and VAR to rule he had handled in the build-up to the second. United were fortunate to go in at the break level.

Diallo's moment of magic looked to have won it before Kjaer's header in the second minute of injury time. If United want to win this competition, they have work to do in the San Siro next week. Diallo, who could end up costing £37 million if a series of bonus clauses are met, has already made a case to start that game.

Even with Bruno Fernandes, Mason Greenwood, and Martial all starting, United struggled to create many clear chances and it was Milan who ended the game having had more shots and shots on target, even without strikers Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Mario Mandzukic. For Solskjaer, there were few other highlights apart from Diallo's encouraging cameo.

"He is creative and he plays with freedom," said Solskjaer.

"It was a great pass from Bruno, that is what makes the goal. Amad has still got loads to learn but he will be better off after the goal."

After conceding so late, United are left banking on their fine away form to bail them out of trouble in Italy. Another moment of inspiration from an unexpected source would help.

"It makes It harder but we have to go and score goals and win the game and that probably will suit us," said Solskjaer.

"We are a team that's better when we go forward. Of course, we fancy our chances, We've been exciting and efficient away from home, particularly against [Real] Sociedad [in the last round].

"That's a template on how we want to play. We have to score one or two but we fancy our chances."