Date: May 15, 2022
Time: 18:00 CET, 12:00 EST
A Quick Tale of the Tape
Atalanta: 8th place | 59 points | +20 GD | +18.1 xGD
Milan: 1st place | 80 points | +33 GD | +25.1 xGD
Time to Play Spoiler
With two matches left on the season Atalanta has a chance to do innumerable damage this week, spinning the Serie A table more on its head than it already is. Atalanta makes the quick trip to the Lombardian capital this weekend to take on local rival AC Milan. We’re past banter era Milan, and this is now a team that is the favorite to win Serie A, unless….. Atalanta has been saving all its magic for the end of the year to dethrone the Nerorossi.
Milan is a tricky side to prepare against. Nothing about the side on paper makes an opposition shudder. Instead, under the tutelage of Stefano Pioli Milan has blossomed into a well oiled machine that is robust across the entire pitch. On offense, in the midfield, and on defense – Pioli’s men usually execute to perfection and have mastered the first lesson of nearly endeavor – “don’t beat yourself.” A lesson Atalanta could certainly learn, but it has definitely paid off in spades for Milan this year. And for the black and red, it all starts at the back. Fikayo Tomori, and Pierre Kalulu have built a fortress around Mike Maignan – and Kalulu may be the unsung hero for Milan this year. When the young Frenchman took over after Simon Kjaer’s unfortunate injury (around match 20), Milan has registered 11 clean sheets in Serie A, against 5 non-clean sheets. Just think about that insane stat for a second! 11 out of Milan’s last 16 matches have ended in a clean sheet. Not the best proposition for a squad that has struggled to score goals in 2022.
Needless to say Atalanta has its work cut out for it. Trying to play spoiler while strengthening its own position in Europe is a double or nothing situation. But instead of getting caught up in the intensity of situation, Atalanta needs to focus on getting back to basics, and as mentioned above – “don’t beat yourself.” Two errors led to goals the first time Atalanta faced Milan, and nothing should be more embarrassing for Remo Freuler this year than getting punked by Sandro Tonali when he was already the last man. Yet if Atalanta can limit the mistakes, and slow down the man I’ll be talking about below, Gian Piero Gasperini and the Dea have a chance. La Dea are on the road, and we know those hot salmon kits are coming out, so we have that going for us!
Milan Player to Watch – Rafael Leao
There isn’t a more in-form player in Serie A right now than Rafael Leao. A player who always had immense talent, but couldn’t find an end product together, has figured it out just at the right time. With 10 goals and 7 assists on the season, Leao has turned into an unstoppable offensive performer.
Beyond his goal contributions, no one stretches defense like Leao, and it has become unstoppable for just one defender to stop him. Leao has completed 91 dribbles this year (second on the list is Nico Gonzalez at 60!), and the young Portuguese has completed an insane 57% of his dribbles attempted, good for 6th in the league among players with 60 dribble attempts. Anyone who has watched him recently knows he’s Milan’s go to offensive weapon- putting the onus on Hans Hateboer to be on his A-game. Marten de Roon will likely be required to help his Dutch teammate out. But the name of the game may be keep away, so Leao doesn’t even get a chance to dribbling and stretch his legs.
Atalanta Passione’s Predicted Starting XI
The back four has often worked for Atalanta this year when it behooves the squad to stack the midfield. It worked against Inter, it worked against Juventus, and it should likely be the strategy again against Milan. In addition to a stacked midfield, it forces Hans Hateboer to stay a bit further back to address the Leao factor.
Further up, its time for Teun Koopmeiners to expand upon his reemergence against Spezia and dictate the flow of the game. With Koopmeiners in his flow, he can unleash balls onto Zapata and Muriel to run onto, who will then do their thing inside the box, and hopefully find the X-factor streaking into the area – Mario Pasalic.
Pasalic has now scored in his last four contests, and his knack to work the space may be the solution against a supremely athletic Milan centerback pairing. Atalanta may not win a lot of head to head matches against Kalulu and Tomori, so it may come down to deft positioning and aerial superiority to put away any goals. Some free kick stormers wouldn’t hurt either!
Some Fun With Numbers
Circling back to Pierre Kalulu’s emergence – beyond the clean sheets, which don’t look at defensive process as closely as other metrics, Milan’s defense still rates better than it did before his insertion as a starter. Looking at expected goals conceded, Milan has improved from a 1.1 xGA clip to 0.7 xGA since Kalulu’s emergence.
Sandro Tonali scored the world’s easiest brace against Verona last week. I don’t have the numbers to back it up, but when both of your goal scoring chances are at 0.79 xG and 0.87 xG, it would take a disastrous defensive effort to let someone get two easier chances than that.
Speaking of finishing, among the 19 Serie A players who have scored 10 or more non-penalty goals this year, Mario Pasalic has the 5th highest goals above expected goals. His chances suggested he would’ve put away 8.7 goals this year, but his pristine finishing has him outpacing his xG output by 4.3 goals. This stat is a blend of fortune and finishing quality, nonetheless Mario Pasalic has still been quite lethal this year.
As most know, Atalanta has not lost in hot salmon yet this year. Earning sixteen out of eighteen points in the third kit would have the whole spectrum of superstitious Atalantini (from slightly superstitious to those who hate the number 13) clamoring for neon colors this weekend.
Last year around this time Milan denied Atalanta its highest ever finish in Serie A. Hopefully the boys can play a little what goes around comes around, especially with Atalanta’s main rivals for Europa League all squaring up against at least one easy team in the final two matches of the year. Atalanta needs points to stay in touch with its rivals. And without a tiebreaker against Fiorentina and Roma, and maybe Lazio too, holding serve isn’t good enough. La Dea must maximize points. Three this weekend would be a welcome surprise, and its three points the boys have the talent to earn. Let’s just hope the squad has been saving up its energy stores to take ’em! As always, Forza Dea!!!
