For an hour the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino held its breath, the game locked in the sort of cagey deadlock that tempts a crowd to believe the worst danger has passed. Then, in the space of two minutes, AC Milan tore the afternoon in half. Alphadjo Cissè struck first, Adrien Rabiot followed almost immediately, and the visitors walked away from Turin with a 2-1 win and the swagger of a side that has learned to punish a single moment of hesitation.

The final score does scant justice to how suddenly the match turned. Torino were competitive, organised, unbeaten by anything Milan had mustered until the 64th minute. But top sides live in those windows, and Milan slammed this one open with a ruthlessness that left the hosts reeling before they had even processed the first blow. Ché Adams's stoppage-time strike restored a flicker of pride, yet it was Milan who dictated the scoreline and the narrative.

This was the opening statement of a season for both clubs, and the contrast could hardly have been starker. Milan move to four points off the perfect start to their campaign; Torino sit rooted to the foot of the early Serie A table with nothing to show for their efforts. One result rarely defines a year, but it can set a tone, and the tones set here pointed in opposite directions.

Two minutes of ruin

The breakthrough carried the fingerprints of a team that knew exactly what it wanted. Rabiot, drifting into space on the left, delivered the cross, and Cissè met it on his right foot from the left side of the box, curling the ball into the top right corner. It was a finish of real quality, the kind that rewards a well-worked move with a flourish, and it silenced the home support in an instant.

Torino had barely regathered themselves when the second arrived. This time Samuel Chukwueze was the provider, whipping a cross into the six-yard box, and Rabiot arrived to lash it home with his left foot into the top left corner. From provider to scorer in the blink of an eye, the Frenchman was at the heart of both goals, and Milan's lead had doubled before the hosts could lay a glove on the momentum.

Sixty-four minutes of patience, and then sixty-six. The speed of the double blow was the story of the match, a demonstration of how quickly a well-drilled visiting side can turn a tight contest into a decisive one. Torino, so disciplined until that point, suddenly found themselves chasing a game that had slipped through their fingers while they were still standing still.

Torino's late defiance

To their credit, Torino did not fold. They pressed forward in the closing stages with the desperation of a side unwilling to accept a blank, and deep into stoppage time they found their reward. Gvidas Gineitis swung in a cross from a set piece, and Ché Adams met it in the centre of the box, steering a right-footed finish into the top right corner. For a fleeting second, the Olimpico Grande Torino roared back to life.

But the goal came in the 93rd minute, too late to be anything more than a consolation. There was no time for a second act, no chance to build on the sudden surge of belief. Adams's strike will offer the coaching staff something to hold onto — evidence that the attacking pieces can combine when pushed — yet it could not paper over the reality of a defeat that leaves them empty-handed.

The margin of a single goal flatters the hosts, given how comprehensively Milan controlled the decisive phase. Still, the manner of the late reply hints that this is not a side devoid of fight. The challenge now is to summon that intensity for ninety minutes rather than the final few, before the early points slip further out of reach.

Where the table sits

Milan's reward is a place among the early pace-setters, fourth on three points with two goals scored and one conceded. It is exactly the sort of result that champions-in-waiting bank without fuss: a road win against awkward opposition, secured by a concentrated burst of quality. The names on the scoresheet — Cissè and Rabiot — suggest a squad with menace running through it, and the assist column adds Chukwueze and Rabiot to a growing list of contributors.

For Torino, the picture is bleaker. Fifteenth in the table on zero points, with one goal for and two against, they have opened their season with defeat and questions. The performance was not without merit, and the fine margins that separated them from Milan for so long will offer some comfort, but points are the only currency that matters, and they have none of them yet.

It is a single fixture in a long campaign, and the standings will shift a dozen times before the season takes real shape. Yet the early table tells its own honest story: one side has hit the ground running, the other must now respond before the deficit hardens into something heavier.

The road ahead

Milan will take enormous encouragement from the way they seized their moment. There was patience before the ruthlessness, a willingness to wait for the opening and then the sharpness to take it twice in quick succession. Rabiot's afternoon — a goal and an assist within two minutes — embodied the sense of a team clicking into gear early, and building on this start will be the immediate priority.

Torino's task is more urgent. A first-day defeat is no catastrophe, but the way it arrived — undone by a fleeting lapse rather than a sustained battering — is the kind of detail a coaching staff will dwell on. Tightening those two crucial minutes, and finding the ruthlessness that Adams flashed only at the death, will define whether this becomes a blip or a pattern.

For now, though, the ledger is simple. AC Milan leave Turin with three points and momentum; Torino are left to rue the game that got away from them in the time it takes to draw breath. Serie A has only just begun, but on this evidence the two clubs are already travelling in very different directions.