Atalanta claimed a hard-fought victory at Napoli, the team who had been the Serie A leaders so far. It was a wonderful and exciting match that rewarded the Nerazzurri. It was Ruslan Malinovskyi to score the opener: “We’re happy, thank you fans”.

Ruslan, what a satisfaction! You scored the opener. You struggled but, in the end, the three points go to Atalanta, to Bergamo.

“Yes, we are happy with the result. These three points are important for us. We held out well all match. We played well. We had some difficulties at times. But we played 90 minutes and we won over these 90 minutes. I’d like to thank all the fans that backed us. I saw that there were few of them but we heard them before the match. Thank you, Bergamo, this victory is for you! It’s for the fans. We are surely happy.”

The table is getting tighter and tighter. But, at Atalanta, Gian Piero Gasperini said that we shouldn’t speak about the Scudetto.

“Right, we shouldn’t. The important thing for us is to play well in each match. We’re playing against Villarreal in four days, against a strong team. The top 4 teams are very close. I think the league has become more interesting for everybody, for us and the fans. If we keep on like this, the level of the league enhances, too. Now we’ll focus only on the next match. It’s always difficult to win here [at Napoli]. But we did win. It’s a very important moment.”

Atalanta don’t stop. We’re moving forward match after match. Then we’ll evaluate our position after a few matches when it will be possible to take stock. Now you face Villarreal. You’ve said that it’s an important match, a one-off game.

“Yes, we play at home. We have the option of one result. We must win this match. Of course, we’ll put in a strong performance, as always. We have to recover well now and prepare well for the match. But the important thing is to have the mindset and the strength against Villarreal that we had against Juve, Napoli. We also must do well technically. If we do all that, we can win this match.”