This Friday evening Udinese and Milan will take on each other for the 100th time in Serie A. Udinese have faced only Roma, Inter and Juventus on more occasions. The head-to-head between the two teams stands at 19 Udinese wins, 44 Milan wins and 36 draws, more than with any other team in Serie A for the Zebrette. The first meeting of the league season ended 1-0 to Milan, but the Rossoneri have not won both the home and away games against Udinese since the 2007/08 campaign. The last time the two teams met in Udine was on 20 January 2024 and saw Milan win 3-2 at Bluenergy Stadium.
Udinese have beaten Milan in eight of the Rossoneri's last 16 visits, making them the team that has overcome them the most times on the road after Inter and Juventus, since May 2009. One of these was the 3-1 win on 18 March 2023, when Kingsley Ehizibue scored his second and most recent goal in Serie A. Florian Thauvin (in the 3-2 on 20 January 2024) and Alexis Sanchez (in the 4-4 on 9 January 2011) have also scored against the Rossoneri, but they won’t be available to play in this encounter. Rafael Leao made his Serie A debut in Udine on 25 August 2019, and referee Juan Luca Sacchi officiated the match on 4 November 2023 that Udinese won 1-0 at San Siro.
Udinese have scored nine headed goals so far in 2024/25, the best figure in Serie A after Inter and Atalanta. The Friulians have also conceded only one headed goal this season, while Milan have conceded three - only Napoli have done better, with zero. Of their nine headed goals, five have been scored by Lorenzo Lucca, who is currently on ten goals for the campaign. If he were to score, he would become the first Italian to exceed the ten-goal mark for Udinese since the 2017/18 season, when Kevin Lasagna netted 12 times.
Only Kenan Yildiz and Pietro Comuzzo are younger than Iker Bravo (four months and one month respectively) out of the players to have featured more than 20 times in this Serie A season. Sandi Lovric, Jesper Karlstrom and Lorenzo Lucca have made 30 appearances this season, however, the Slovenian has been substituted 22 times - only Matteo Politano and Romelu Lukaku have been benched on more occasions. Hassane Kamara has three assists this season – the last time a Udinese defender made this many assists was back in the 2020/21 season, when Nahuel Molina reached five for the campaign.