Atalanta bounced back but, in the end, it was Napoli to win. The Nerazzurri surely didn’t have the best start to the match but coach Gian Piero Gasperini found the positive side of the match, anyway: “It was a good test for the team”.
Gian Piero Gasperini, as we’ve just said with Marten de Roon, the keyword right now is to bounce back right away.
“We’ve never fallen down. This thing that we must bounce back or that we’re disappointed… They’ve been too negative in Bergamo this season. We cannot be disappointed with our season, absolutely. This team always do what they have to, today’s performance was also great, I think it this way. We’ll see. There are still the Europa League quarter-finals, and we’ve still got several league games.”
We said that Atalanta should bounce back, as this could have been a good test ahead of the Leipzig game.
“The team had a good test. They have proved they are in a good shape. Unfortunately, sometimes we tumble down in some circumstances like in the first half, which ended 2-0 [in Napoli’s favour] with the only two incidents there have been. We were at fault in both incidents. One of them squeezed in, while on the other one, we were caught napping on the free kick. When these things happen to you, in these kinds of games, then you lose because these are strong teams.Atalanta gave the impression of being able to perform a comeback for a long time”
– You reopened the game, indeed –
“Yes, we did. We also played well. However, when there are too many incidents, then you can also lose, fatefully. Yet, the team played great even today.”
There’s the 1st leg against Leipzig next Thursday.
“It’s a team that won 4-1 at [Borussia] Dortmund yesterday. They’re doing great, they’re compact. It’s one of the big German teams. We’ll go there to play the first round. We’ll see. We’ll prove ourselves against them. It’ll be tough to qualify but we strongly believe we can do it.”
It’s a pity that Atalanta don’t manage to be consistent at home, especially this season.
“We’ve had some bad results at home which prevented us from being in the top spots of the table. We did well until December, then we had some problems. We’ll think about this once the league is over. Right now we have to try to do our best until the end.”