Only one Atalantino played on Friday 23 September and it was captain Rafael Toloi, who completed the full 90 minutes in Italy’s 1-0 victory over England at the Meazza in Milan. The spirits are now high ahead of Italy’s trip to Hungary on the 26th of September: the winner of the game in Budapest will go top of the UEFA Nations League group.
Previous matches and upcoming fixtures:
Ruslan Malinovskyi was the first Atalantino out of the 12 players on international duty to take to the pitch with Ukraine. His national team are the only one playing three games, while all the others have two fixtures on the agenda (Nigeria will play one match, the friendly with Algeria).
Ruslan played the entire match with Scotland, who won 3-0 over Ukraine.
His next fixtures are Armenia-Ukraine (24/9) in Yerevan and Ukraine-Scotland (27/9) in Krakow.
Here are the results of Thursday 22 September’s UEFA Nations League matches.
It was an unlucky evening for Teun KOOPMEINERS: his match against Poland lasted only 6 minutes as he was forced to leave the pitch on a stretcher after clashing with Linetty. Marten de ROON, the second Atalanta player called up by Louis van Gaal, played the second half. The Netherlands won 2-0 in Poland.
The Netherlands-Belgium (25/9) in Amsterdam is the next game.
Merih DEMIRAL was not called up for Turkey’s game against Luxembourg in Instanbul, which ended in a 3-3 draw.
Faroe Islands-Turkey (25/9) in Torshavn is the next fixture.
Mario PAŠALIĆ’s Croatia hosted Joakim MÆHLE and Rasmus HØJLUND’s Denmark: it ended in a 2-1 victory for the Croatians. Mæhle, who complete the full 90 minutes, provided the assist for the Danish equaliser, but it was not enough for Denmark to emerge unscathed from the match against Croatia. In the 60th minute, young Rasmus Højlund made his national team debut. Mario Pašalić played 71 minutes of the game.
Denmark-France (25/9) in Copenhagen is the Danes’ next fixture, while the Croatians will visit Austria in Wien (25/9).
Caleb OKOLI, Matteo RUGGERI and Giorgio SCALVINI were named in Italy’s Under-21 squad. Two friendly matches were scheduled, the first one against England in Pescara ended 3-0 for the visitors, and the second one, Italy-Japan, is planned for 26/9 in Castel di Sangro. Okoli and Scalvini played the entire match with the English, while Ruggeri did not feature in the game.
To round this off, Ademola LOOKMAN’s Nigeria will visit Algeria in Oran for a friendly match on 27 September.