After the POTM “hat-trick” of Duván Zapata, the award goes to Ukraine: Ruslan Malinovskyi is the Player of the Month for December!

In our monthly appointment, the initiative sponsored by ItalianOptic, the Nerazzurri fans voted for the midfielder from Zhytomyr as the best Atalanta player of the past month. The other finalist, who certainly deserves mentioning, is Teun Koopmeiners. The Dutch who joined Atalanta last summer and reached the final for the first time, stood out for the number and the quality of his displays in December as well, sealing the decider in the victory at Hellas Verona on 12 December.

So, this season’s fourth award goes to Malinovskyi: our number 18 put in a top-quality performance last month, making four appearances (of 228 minutes in total) and scoring two goals between Serie A and the Champions League. Both the goals, as well as his three previous goals, were scored from outside the box: the latter at Napoli, thanks to which atalanta opened the scoring; the former against Villarreal at home with which the Nerazzurri pulled one back but which, unfortunately, didn’t help to get a result in the end.

Congratulations again, Ruslan! He also had stockpiled awards at the end of the last season: it’s curious that, just like Duván, Malina won a special “ItalianOptic hat-trick” in March, April and May.