Atalanta was making me a nervous nelly in the first half. With silly back-passes from Josip, whiffs by our best defender, and a plethora of chances missed – it was easy to think “here we go again.” But the match was anything but that, and was a quintessential tale of two halves. La Dea stormed out of the gate in the 2nd half, and with a little bit of luck going their way, were able to net three goals in ten minutes to put the match to bed. In fact, they really could’ve scored seven. Lesha missed a sitter, and a fantastic Cortaz save on a Zapata rocket that clipped the post kept La Dea from hitting the lucky number seven, which they haven’t achieved since Leche nearly a year ago.
It’s hard to find anything to quibble about, even though the match was very uneasy through the first 45 minutes. A one in ten thousand misplaced ball by Romero led to a Simy chip goal over Sportiello, and Ilicic’s stupid backpasses were bailed out by Marco. But ultimately Atalanta did what they were supposed to do – create chances. The chances didn’t fall in the first half, but they rained like buckets in the second to make up for lost time. Lesha’s left foot is nearly as magical as Josip’s, and he can place a ball on a dime when given space – both in his passes and shots. It’s crazy that Malinovskyi, Miranchuk, and Ilicic all have divine left foots, but they’re all different. Ruslan is the power, Ilicic is the curler, and Miranchuk is the marksmen, such a unique group of lefties to guard against.
Also, we need to give a shout out to Davide Ghislandi on his Serie A debut! While he didn’t get many minutes, I still came away impressed by how he knew his position. He was already making overlapping runs with Ilicic, covering back on defense, and coming up far to press his opponent. A lot to like in a guy who’s only 19, let’s hope he stays healthy and just gets better from here. There will probably come a point where we need him to make an important start for us. Congratulazioni Davide!
At a certain point this would just become an article lionizing all the things Atalanta did well today – which isn’t really necessary, we saw the game. In the end, it’s important we got three important points, and gained ground on Milan (should’ve been three points gained!), and separated ourselves further from Napoli. Inter on Monday looms large now, and hopefully the confidence gained and offensive form can roll over to knock Conte’s men down a peg. Haven’t beaten Inter in awhile, why not make Monday the day? As always, Forza Dea!
