Duván Zapata is not going on holiday either, as he also received the call-up from his national team. Before leaving, the Colombian striker commented on Atalanta’s 2020-2021 campaign: “We had a great season”.
Now several days off and then the departure for the qualifiers with the national Colombian team. The fixtures of Atalanta ended. It was another long and intense season.
“Yes, it’s true, we had a very great season. And we are glad because we are writing history anyway. We’ve reached the goal that we had set at the beginning of the season. It means that we did extremely well”.
The third place in the Serie A TIM, the third qualification in a row for the UEFA Champions League and the Coppa Italia final. To sum up, Atalanta brought many satisfactions this year again.
“We had many difficulties due to the pandemic. But we’ve managed to maintain the same level of performance thanks to everybody, to the Club that supported us, provided us with everything we needed and we were able to keep calm and work, we can show all our abilities in the best possible ways. Even this year Atalanta managed to be the second to book a place in the Champions League after Inter, who won the league. It’s very important for us. And we want to keep on like that, to keep on surprising the world. Rumour has it that Atalanta do not deserve the place where we are but the way we play speaks for itself. And with our pitch performance, we can conquer it all.”
Atalanta are still the team that have scored the most goals of all in Serie A this year again, 90.
“All our players are strong in attack, our defenders score goals too. We’ve done well as a team this year too. We managed to score many goals. And this is our strong side. We want to keep on like that, improving each year. I think that the next season will be very important for us and very good too”.
Duván scored 19 goals and provided 14 assists this year. Which goal does he prefer?
“It wasn’t a particularly beautiful goal. I liked the move I made. It was the one I scored here against Udinese, we won 3-2, Malinovskyi provided the assist. It wasn’t the most beautiful goal but I like everything about it: how we started that move, how Malinovskyi passed the ball without even looking at me and then I liked the move I made. If I have to choose one quickly, it will be that goal”.
The 2020/21 season has ended. We all hope that the next season will be the one with the public at the stadium.
“We hope so. We were very glad to see the fans in the [Coppa Italia] final. It’s a pity it went like that. But the matches are played differently when there’s the public, when there are the fans. So, we hope that we can get back to normal next year”.