Atalanta regret not being able to equalise against Roma at the Olimpico. You can feel it from the post-match interview with the Nerazzurri midfielder Matteo #Pessina: “We must do better”.

Matteo Pessina, what a pity because you kept on believing till the very end.

“Yes, it’s a pity. It’s a pity as we wanted to win this match, after our performance against Samp [Sampdoria]. We wanted to do really great in this match. Perhaps, we’re a little tired as, you know, we play every three days. But it can’t be an alibi. As we pretty much had the game in our hands. They did well on counterattacks, the few we conceded. They are good at it. They have strong players. We can’t deny that, they also defended well. They put in an excellent performance. I think they produced an excellent defensive display. We could have done more. But we played our game.”

The focus should now shift to Bayer Leverkusen.

“Yes, perhaps we’d better focus on the next game, forgetting immediately this one. Even though it made us understand some things, we must do better. The league is difficult. If we want to reach the top spots… After this match, we understood that there are no easy games. Each team is fighting for something. From tomorrow we’ll focus on Thursday’s match that is crucial for us.”

What did Atalanta lack, if you did lack something?

“Well, it’s difficult to say what we lacked today, as we did our best. Those lads, who came on, did it too. They [Roma] defended really well. Their two defensive lines were really close. So, there were few spaces. Then they tried to go on the counter. So, we struggled every time we had to run backwards. They have such strong and technically good players as Abraham, Zaniolo. So, it’s hard to say [what we lacked]. Of course, we could have had more shots inside their box. But the spaces were so small that it was difficult to coordinate.”

You complained about a different way of judging some incidents by the referees.

“No, there were no different judgement criteria towards us. Absolutely not. It’s the judgement criteria in general that I don’t understand; when sometimes referees approach us to tell us some things, and then they don’t execute them on the pitch, for example. In that case, I don’t understand what we have to do, as going shoulder to shoulder is legitimate in football. Today we were penalised 5-6 times for it, which could have had important consequences on our moves. I remember I was inside the box against Zalewski, he fell down after a shoulder push. There was Miranchuk alone and I gave it to him. That is what I don’t understand. While Abraham’s foul wasn’t even checked out. So, I don’t quite get this measure of judgment. I think they’ll explain it to us, though.”