Saturday’s victory over “Winter Champions” Milan marked an often times brilliant, sometimes head-scratching, and minimally infuriating first half of the Serie A campaign. Racking up 36 points in the league after 19 games is an all-time best in the Gasperini era; and for a club that notoriously starts slow it should only be encouraging for what’s to come in the 2nd half of the season. Still competing on three fronts, Atalanta can hopefully ride momentum from Saturday to turn some their 1st half ugly and bad moments into learning lessons and good fortunes coming forward in the next few months. So without further ado, here’s my backwards rundown of the Sergio Leone classic, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” And also don’t forget to share your thoughts on best moments of the season all the way at the bottom!
The Ugly
Who knows if we’ll ever know what happened with Papu, and honestly I may not want to know the full truth. It was such a head-scratching moment to have club legend, captain, and talisman suddenly go full teenage girl and essentially isolate himself from the team. Its extremely likely Papu will be shipped off to Sevilla, but it’s still a shame that this unfortunate saga will tarnish the legacy of a player and a man who had once embodied the club and the city. While this was and still is an ugly situation, it really did demonstrate what the club is made of, and helped the club flourish into a new gear that no one could have ever expected them to have. While an extremely different player than Papu, Matteo Pessina’s insertion into his attacking midfield role as a “defensive” trequartista added a new gear to La Dea’s press. His incredible defensive and offensive contribution opens up the game for the other playmakers to take onus for their attacking responsibilities; Ilicic, the Colombians forwards, and the wingers have responded admirably.
The Bad
Similar to ugly, there isn’t a whole lot to write about here. Asides from being torn apart by Liverpool in the Champion’s League, Atalanta more than made up for that defeat by not only shutting out the Reds at home, but not even allowing a shot on goal. If anything the worst of the season was Atalanta’s countinued propensity to drop points against clubs they should be beating. From Sampdoria, all the way through Spezia, Bologna, Genoa, and Udinese, Atalanta dropped anywhere from 9 to 11 points (depending on how you feel about the Sampdoria game). You can’t expect a club to run the table in such a dominant fashion, but just squeezing out wins in a few of those matches is the difference between being 7 points off 1st, and being right in the thick of the Scudetto race. Learning how to beat the parked bus will make or break the 2nd half for La Dea, and hopefully a majestic Ilicic will be able to figure out how to pick apart clubs throwing out a full fledged catenaccio.
Another minor quibble is Atalanta’s big goose egg in offseason moves for wingbacks. Romero has been a stalwart, Miranchuk is showing signs of the quality he can provide, and Lammers now looks like a move for the future with loads of promise (but minimal immediate contribution), but Atalanta truly struck out on the wings. Piccini barely played due to injury, we quickly found out Depaoli didn’t deserve to be on the pitch, and Mojica offered very little besides a bit of pace here and there. With all of them being shipped elsewhere, it is a small black eye on Atalanta’s usual excellent transfer business. With Joakim Maehle coming in as a reinforcement this winter, it looks like they’ve made up for their early transfer miscues. Maehle truly is Castagne 2.0 in style and club history, and will hopefully continue his good form as Gosens and Hateboer’s backup.
The Good
There’s almost too much to talk about here after such a positive start to the season. La Dea are still alive in the Champion’s League and look like a semi-decent shout to knock off Real Madrid (not a favorite, but they deserve a puncher’s chance). Sitting tied for 4th in Serie A after an extremely busy autumn is encouraging, with only one extremely bad loss at Napoli 4-1. With 44 goals, they are only 1 goal behind Inter for most in Serie A, and only 5 goals off the pace of their record setting goal scoring campaign last year (no 7 goal games to rely on either to pad the stats!). Additionally, they sit tied for 5th in goals allowed, with a large part of that due to the brave and ruthless center half play of Cristian Romero. With Atalanta’s defense anchored by Romero, Djimsiti and Toloi look much more comfortable and daring to make runs forward knowing that there is a less of a chance that they’ll get burned on a counter-attack. Without Ilicic being mildly pedestrian in the first quarter of the season, it’d be hard to look elsewhere than Romero for a first-half MVP for La Dea.
Looking further up the pitch, you can’t say enough about the play of Matteo Pessina. Tasked with the nearly impossible task of replacing Papu Gomez, he has filled in admirably. While he doesn’t offer the same attack prowess of the old La Dea talisman, he contributes in so many different parts of the game that there seems to be much more cohesion on the pitch. He consistently runs more than any other player on the pitch (I spot checked two games, and he ran nearly a kilometer more than the 2nd placed player on the pitch), dogs players in the press, and runs into unique places on the pitch that opens up space for the attack. His leading of the three prong midfield press with Freuler and de Roon can be so ruthless (see Milan game) that its more of an offensive igniter than one would expect. So while Papu leaving still stings, Pessina has potentially brought more balance to the lineup and a setup that is less reliant on one player. When Pasalic comes back, I feel he can play the Pessina role equally well – bringing even more depth to the midfield.
Offensively, there were struggles at times early on. Oftentimes there was too much reliance on Papu to make wine out of water, especially when Ilicic was struggling to find his form. Now with Ilicic in surging form – him, Zapata, and Muriel are falling into form at the perfect time. The Milan match exuded the wildly different offensive contributions Ilicic and Zapata provide while sharing striker duties, and how effective they can be playing off each other’s strengths. With Ilicic still tries to find the perfect balance on finishing versus dishing out passes (it’s still a bit of back and forth with him), his dribbling is still lethal and he’s made absolute mince meat out of plenty of opponents including wizard like performances against Roma, Benevento, and Milan. I’d still like to see more consistent play from Malinovskyi, and for Miranchuk to eventually overcome his transition to Italy and show his true skill – but for now Ilicic and Zapata leading the line is as scary as it gets for defensive lines in Serie A.
Let’s keep on dancing… The dismantling of Milan had to be an incredible boost to team morale, and the perfect way to enter the 2nd half of the campaign and the slew of games coming up against Lazio. While Top 4 is still the goal, it’ll be tougher this year – given the emergence of Milan and Napoli not folding in the middle of winter. Fortunately, Atalanta can control its own destiny to finish Top 4 once again and continue to prove that results and wage bill aren’t always necessarily correlated. As long as we stay healthy, stay focused, and stay hungry; there’s no reason not to have confidence in this club doing things we know they can do. Let’s get ready for a wild ride in the Spring! As always, Forza La Dea!
Almost forgot! Here’s my top men and moments of the first half of the season. Other opinions welcome!
Surprise of the First Half: Matteo Pessina
Signing of the Offseason: Cristian Romero
Comeback Player of the First Half: Josip Ilicic
Best Win of the First Half: 2-0 against Liverpool at Anfield
Worst Dropped Points of the First Half: 2-2 against Bologna
Dud of the First Half: Fabio Depaoli
Goal of the First Half, Skill Only: Sam Lammers (Cag), Luis Muriel (Roma)
Goal of the First Half, Importance: Josip Ilicic (Liv), Remo Freuler (Juve)
First Half MVP: Cristian Romero
