Real Madrid resumes the Champions League on its sixth matchday, already in a difficult situation. They have accumulated three defeats after their first two victories and tonight they face off in Italy with Atalanta Bergamo, the team they already won the European Super Cup against on August 14 in Warsaw (2-0). However, the situation today is very different.
The whim of the calendar has wanted the whites to visit Bergamo with the team on pins and needles and with many doubts to find themselves facing one of the fittest teams in Europe. Atalanta has fourteen games without losing in all competitions, nine of them won in a Serie A that they lead with two points over Inter. In the Champions League he continues undefeated, fifth classified with three wins and two draws and numbers that speak of his solvency. He has scored 11 goals and has only conceded one.
bad start
Scamacca and the Colombian Cuadrado are long-term casualties
And the season did not start well at all for Atalanta, who lost two of their first three games in Italy. His coach, Gian Piero Gasperini (66 years old), did not have it easy. In the preseason he lost Gianluca Scamacca due to a broken cruciate. Then he had the long-term losses of Giorgio Scalvini and Juan Cuadrado. Another of his figures, the Belgian Teo Koopmeiters, left for Juventus in the preseason. None of all this upset Atalanta, who hunted the Argentine nationalized Italian striker Mateo Retegui from Genoa before the market closed, a total success because he is now the Italian top scorer with twelve goals and has fourteen goals for another two in the Champions League.
Retegui, the Belgian midfielder De Ketelaere and the Nigerian Ademola Lookman (the one who scored a hat trick in the Europa League final against Xabi Alonso’s previously undefeated Bayer Leverkusen) lead this Atalanta, a team that plays at full speed without hardly any transitions in the center of the field and with the sides very open. His high pressing ends up getting rivals into his area. Historically, defense was their Achilles heel, but this season they conceded little.
Madrid
Get Vinícius and Rodrygo back
Madrid comes with Vinícius and Rodrygo but until the last moment they will be doubts because they have just recovered from injuries and will not be one hundred percent. Bellingham is his best asset and seems to have recovered from the discomfort that prevented him from finishing in Montilivi on Saturday.
Mbappé, who already scored against the Italians in the Super Cup, continues to look for himself. Against Girona he scored and showed some signs of recovery. Ancelotti said in the press conference that he hopes this will finally be Mbappé’s game. But he’s been saying the same thing all season.
Madrid has never lost against Atalanta. He has played against them three times and won all three. Ancelotti said he was a good friend of Gasperini and praised Atalanta. “His football is intense and spectacular.” The Italian coach has been at the helm of the Lombard club for nine seasons.
#Atalanta #small
