Who said Atalanta wasn’t a good shout to win any trophies this year! La Dea have the good fortune of travelling to Valencia this weekend to take on Gennaro Gattuso’s Spanish side to battle for the ‘coveted’ Naranja Trophy. It will also be Atalanta’s first venture back to Valencia after its momentous Champion’s League victory over Los Che.
Interestingly, or maybe not, this is not Atalanta’s first time facing off against Valencia in the preseason. Traveling back five years ago, La Dea nicked the Naranja Trophy off Valencia with goals from both Rafael Toloi and Jose Luis Palomino. Its slightly crazy that both goal scorers are still with the squad (technically for Seis at least), and its highly improbable that there is any holdovers for Valencia from that 2017 bout. Heck, Valencia barely has any holdovers from the 2020 Champion’s League battles in the knockout stage.
Given that some of the best moments in Atalanta’s history have come in the Mestalla, purely for a trip down memory lane it will exciting to see what the boys can do again.
What Should We Expect on Saturday?
With one week to go until Atalanta faces off against Sampdoria in Genoa, La Dea’s performance against Newcastle suggests that it still had some rust to shake off. Saturday’s face off in Spain should be just about that – improving the familiarity and flow within the squad. There was some clunkiness in the offensive flow against Newcastle. Part of that was the starting midfield pairing of Giorgio Scalvini and Teun Koopmeiners. The Scalvini experiment in midfield is an interesting one, but his possession still needs improvement, and proceedings would likely go better if he was paired with the likes of Remo Freuler – or if he was part of a midfield three.
Defensively, let’s get some more from Caleb Okoli. He was the brightest spot for Atalanta in the clash in England, and I for one am interested to see if the young Italian can produce back-to-back good games – even if it just is preseason. Marten de Roon and Rafael Toloi were his partners in defense; both insertions were odd, given de Roon is obviously a midfielder by trade, and Toloi was pushed off to his unfavored left side. Maybe Berat Djimsiti gets the nod this time, or Merih Demiral who did not feature against Newcastle. If Demiral and Okoli both start, it will be interesting to see which one starts in the middle of the back three.
Who Starts in Attack?
With Ademola Lookman now in the fold, if he has indeed made the trip to Spain it would definitely make sense to get him as many minutes with his new teammates as possible. However, he is part of a new logjam in attack that includes Ruslan Malinovskyi, Jeremie Boga, Mario Pasalic, and even Ederson. Gasperini showed a willingness to play a two striker formation with the Colombians up front, potentially making even less room for the creative types. Ultimately, I think Gasperini goes with his tried and true two attacking midfield setup, and hopefully Lookman is the benefactor of some of those minutes in the second half. Although, I will posit that both Malinovskyi and Boga get the starting nods.
One week to go, and as I’m writing the thrashing that Bayern Munich is giving our friends Eintracht Frankfurt reminds me of the importance of knocking off the rust early. Keep using these early games to find the rhythm and prepare for the matches with meaning. The last thing Atalanta wants is dropping points to a bottom half Sampdoria side because of lack of preparation. While I don’t think that it will be an issue, it feels worth repeating, and hopefully is on all the boys’ minds at kickoff. Let’s go make the Naranja Trophy Black and Blue! As always, Forza Dea!!!
