Milan will make a late call on Rafael Leão’s involvement in their Champions League semi-final first leg against Internazionale, their manager, Stefano Pioli, said on Tuesday after the Portuguese winger sustained a muscle injury. Leão has been one of Milan’s most influential players this season with 13 goals and 10 assists in all competitions, but he lasted only 12 minutes of the 2-0 win against Lazio on Saturday before being taken off. Pioli said Leão would either start the game or not play at all, adding that the Belgian winger Alexis Saelemaekers was a potential replacement for the match at San Siro on Wednesday. “Today he [Leão] trained, tomorrow I will decide what to do,” Pioli said, adding he was not worrying over the 23-year-old’s fitness. “I’m going to bed quietly tonight, anyway in the morning Rafa and the doctor will tell me his condition. If he is well he will be called up, otherwise not. If the test is clean he can play. If it is not clean he cannot play – either from the start or the end. I would have preferred to do it today, but it was not possible.” Milan have had a poor run in the league with only three wins in their past 10 games to slip to fifth – two points behind fourth-placed Inter. But Pioli focused on their European run during which they knocked out Tottenham in the last 16 and Napoli in the quarter-finals. “We are talking about Champions League, we have not had ups and downs but an outstanding run,” he said. His Inter counterpart, Simone Inzaghi, said his side must think on their feet as they attempt to overturn a losing Champions League record against their city rivals. The two clubs, who have won a combined 10 European Cups, have faced each other on two occasions in the knockout stages, with Milan winning in both previous ties – played in 2003 and 2005. But Inter have been more successful in recent meetings, winning three and drawing two of the seven derbies the teams have played since Inzaghi took over as Inter manager in 2021. “We have played many times, I said it before. Seven,” Inzaghi said on Tuesday. “We have won, lost, made semi‑finals, finals. We will have to be very good at using our heads when we need to, because there are always unexpected events in such important matches: in the last ones, we have always been good at being lucid. “It’s a very important match as other finals have been. It’s not a derby, but the derby. We know what it means for us, for the club, for the fans, even for myself. But I’m quite serene, I’ve seen the boys very focused.” Inter’s last meeting with Milan in the Champions League semi-finals came 20 years ago in the 2002-03 season, when Milan beat them en route to a sixth European title. The midfielder Federico Dimarco, a childhood Inter fan, said he was at San Siro for that tie but insisted revenge was not on his mind. “It’s been a long time and we think about the present, about tomorrow, about trying to get a positive result and that’s it,” the 25-year-old said. “I don’t have great memories [of the tie], as an Inter fan. But to think that 20 years ago I was there to see it and today I have the chance to play it is an incredible emotion. “It’s a team we know well, we know we’re facing the reigning Italian champions anyway. It will be a good match.”