There’s a lot of disappointment at Atalanta because of how the match against Villarreal went. The visitors took an early lead, therefore Atalanta were forced into a trailing situation. The Nerazzurri weren’t lucky either. Gian Piero Gasperini said: “We made too many errors” at the end of the match.

Gian Piero Gasperini, it’s a pity, as the draw was close and then who knows.

“Yes, that miss in the final minutes leaves even more regret, as we had the sensation we could progress from this round. We wasted too much time. We had to get too many goals back, and this prevented us from producing our best display.”

It was a handicapped start, as you immediately conceded.

“This is a problem, as in these kinds of games – it happened against Milan too – if you give the opposition [the chance to lead]… These are worthy teams. They had two very strong players upfront, who we did well to hold. Conceding took lucidity away from us. We put in a good performance for 10 minutes, in which we could have also equalised. In the first half, we lost lucidity. We lost a bit of quality in our game and we made too many technical errors, while in the final 30 minutes we proved we could do so much better.”

The fans tried to help you.

“The fans supported us until the end and kept on believing throughout. However, we did much to jeopardize our match.”

The goal was to reach the Champions League Round of 16, however, Atalanta are still in a European competition. There’s a Europa League campaign to be played.

“Yes, all things considered, it’s fine. We’ll face the Europa League, which is a less strong competition than the Champions League. In the UCL draw, we would have probably met some very difficult teams to beat. This match has taught us something important.”