The Atalanta coach enjoys the goleada against Salernitana: “These matches give morale for the rest of the championship. Compared to the team of the past, we are technicians but faster”
Ten goals and many emotions in Bergamo. Atalanta dispels the Gewiss Stadium taboo (where victory has been missing since October) and consolidates itself in the race towards Europe (the Champions League zone is only 3 points away). After the 8-2 win against Salernitana, coach Gasperini’s obvious satisfaction: “When you get this type of result, it’s normal to look back at Atalanta in the past, but it’s difficult to make comparisons: that was a more technical team, now we’re faster Tonight we developed our game well, persisted and created quality goals. This gives us morale for the rest of the championship.” La Dea, sixth with 34 points, will challenge Juventus in the next round (which precedes them by only 3 lengths): “For us it is a very good ranking: we are going to play on the field of a great team with absolute values - said Gasperini – . It will be a very difficult game but it can give us measures on our growth”.
Performance
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Gasperini continues: “When you get a result like this, you also accept the goals conceded, on the first one (Dia’s, for Salernitana’s momentary 1-1 draw) we weren’t so happy because we didn’t read well a fairly simple play. But afterwards the team made a great performance”. Speaking of the individuals, Gasperini focused on Lookman (brace): “The strong ones don’t take so long to settle in. He is someone who knows football and was good at adapting to our way of playing in attack He is the one who contributed the most in this first round”. Important words from Gasperini on Scalvini: “He and the others I have seen blossom are the greatest fortune – he explained -. A pure diamond, which is growing in an extraordinary way. He is young but has everything, including the stigmata of a competitive leader. I think he will become an important player for the national team as well”. In 2023, Boga also started strong (goal today and two assists in Bologna): “We know very well the quality of him – Gasperini’s comment -. If he manages to be concrete it can be an added value: with his characteristics he breaks the matches and becomes what we all expected ”. Finally, a joke about Koopmeiners (booked, Juventus will miss): “I wanted him to take the penalty because he’s an important penalty taker like Muriel and then I did it to let Lookman score from open play, who recently only scored from the penalty”.
Lookman
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A brace to keep flying. It’s only January but Ademola Lookman is already one step away from double digits. The Anglo-Nigerian, who arrived in Bergamo in the summer, scored 9 goals in Serie A: “We were very aggressive in the first half and it was a great game: they are three important points and now we are already thinking about the next one”, he explained Dazn, the former Leicester. “It’s very important to win in front of our fans who push us so hard – added Lookman -. We have to think race by race, work hard and give our best. The championship is still long, we’ll see where we get”. Scalvini, author of the momentary 3-1 header. The 2003 class, with his second goal in his championship, explained that “today it was important to win and perform. We took the field with the right attitude and the victory also came. My goal? I did the countermove, then Koopmeiners was good at putting it on me”. On his role, Scalvini said that “the ideal position is that of midfielder, but I play where the coach wants and I also feel good in midfield. I owe everything to Gasperini: he taught me many things and there are many others on which I can improve ”.
January 15th – 9.30pm
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