It’s the first training day of the new season for Rafael Toloi too, who is happy to be able to start preparing for another campaign. The Italian-Brazilian defender is: “Convinced that we can do well”.

THE OFF-SEASON
“My holidays were great, I went home with my family. I could rest and spend all this time with them. I was able to help my dad on the farm, which is something I like very much and this also helps me to clear and rest my mind. It was great. Now I’m ready to start again”.

HIS FITNESS
“I’m doing well, I have fully recovered from my injury, I don’t even want to think about injuries anymore. The end of my season was a bit disappointing, as I had a lot of injuries that prevented me to work. I missed a lot of matches. I couldn’t even train in the final weeks of the season and I regret that. However, I am glad that I can start again. The pre-season is very important for the season. Now I just have to work well during this pre-season to then have a great campaign”.

HIS 8TH SEASON AT ATALANTA
“It’s an honour for me to start [my 8th season with Atalanta]. We know that in today’s football it’s difficult to stay at a club for many years. I’m very happy about it. It’s great to start my 8th season and the best thing is that I’m not the only one. I’m probably one of the veterans but there are a lot of players that have been here for many years. We all know each other very well, we’re good friends and this makes us even stronger”.

THE NEW SEASON
“We know how important this season is for us, therefore we have to prepare well during this pre-season to have a good campaign. This first month of pre-season is really important, as it helps you to get ready for the whole season. Over the last two seasons, I haven’t had that much time to get ready. So, I’m very happy to have all this time to prepare myself, which is what counts”.

THE LEAGUE
“We know the league is difficult, we know our opponents. It won’t be an easy campaign, but I’m sure that we’ll have a good season and we’ll take one game at a time. We’ve always played European football over the last few years. We didn’t qualify for this season’s European competitions, so, we’ll have the league and the Coppa Italia. These are two important competitions, and we have to do well in both of them if we want to play European football again”.

TRAINING
“We’re used to training hard, it’s one of the features of our coach, to work hard. We also like working hard, as we’ve always done. We’ll try to do our best in order to be at our 100% in the games, as it’ll be a tough campaign, as I said, but Atalanta will be ready”.