After bottling chance after chance in their first encounter, Mario Pasalic came up big in the return fixture netting a brace that saw Atalanta through to an important three points. Momentarily back in Champion’s League positions, La Dea did enough to hold serve with the challengers atop the table. With 11 matches left, every point is essential, and Atalanta displayed enough fortitude against Spezia in a match that was anything but a walk in the park – despite the scoreline. At times Spezia outplayed the heavily favored Goddesses – even controlling a majority of the possession through the match – but Spezia’s equally impressive press and general disruption of Atalanta’s attack could only last for so long. Italiano’s squad seemed to run out of steam in the second half – ushering on Atalanta’s vicious 2nd half onslaught – they just seem to lack an it factor to turn strong possession and solid midfield play into goals. Nzola, while a solid striker, can’t turn on magic it the flick of a finger unlike an Ilicic or Muriel – which essentially became their downfall in creating scoring chances.
I was always a proponent of Mario Pasalic being a good alternative to Pessina in the attacking midfield role. Until Friday he has been quite unconvincing since his return from injury. He’s been late to tackles, quick to lose possession, and he’s gets quite lost in the offensive attack – sometimes barely contributing. To me, Pasalic is all about confidence. He looked quite downtrodden in the last few matches, without the elated look that subsequently came after his goals. Goals can quickly bring confidence, so for our sake let’s hope he begin to get the best of Pasalic who is versatile enough to do a lot of good things on the pitch for Gasperini.
Asides Pasalic’s bright match, we have to give kudos to Ilicic for finally not ignoring the overlapping runs of Joakim Maehle. It was pretty clear in the last several matches that Maehle overlaps continually got ignored by the Slovenian, but today wasy a different story. Ilicic looked to actually use him in the offense, and it paid off huge with the first goal. Perhaps it was an overreaction of Ilicic not trusting his Danish flank-mate, but Maehle offensive portfolio is strong enough that hopefully Ilicic doesn’t continue to ignore him going forward. Options in attack and unpredictability is what we need!
While scoring three goals is a good clip against any opponent of any skill level, the clinicality of Atalanta brought those three goals rather than a plethora of chances. Quite the opposite of what we expect from La Dea. While the offense was clinical the rest of the squad did just enough to win. Freuler and de Roon didn’t have particularly excellent matches, and the defense backline – while efficient – was matched well by Spezia’s counterparts. Good enough for today, but on a different day or against a different squad, who knows? Doing just enough to win sometimes, and a lot can go towards the mental strength displayed by the backbone of the squad – knowing their assignments and reading the game well enough to stifle Spezia attack just enough. While it wasn’t enough to keep a cleansheet – it nearly was – kudos to Atalanta loanee Roberto Piccoli scoring Spezia’s only goal (and not celebrating!).
The Friday match originally worried me, but now having an additional days rest before Madrid is key before looking to advance into the Champion’s League Final Eight. The performances since the disastrous first leg have been strong and convincing enough that Atalanta still has a decent shot of advancing past the La Liga giants. Madrid has got their studs back (primarily Benzema) so it’ll be a tall order to pull off victory in Madrid. Regardless, Friday was a nice warmup and a great showing to still net multiple goals after plodding through the first half that would have had one feeling that it the match could’ve been anyone’s. Let’s show that ruthlessness on Tuesday and perhaps more importantly against Verona – every point matter! As always Forza Dea!!!
