After his 12 minute hat-trick in Atalanta’s 4-3 win over Internazionale at the weekend, who better than to focus on than German Gustavo Denis. La Dea’s star striker has come to their rescue time after time and has truly established himself as a cult hero of the Bergamo faithful forever.
Even the great Italian writer Dante could not have imagined such a dramatic and powerful story than that which unfolded at the San Siro on Sunday night.
Atalanta were 3-1 down after 61 minutes to Andrea Stramaccioni’s Inter, with very little hope of a come back on the horizon.
Fortunately referee Andrea Gervasoni gifted the Orobici a chance back into the game when he awarded the visitors a very soft penalty. It was calmly slotted away by Denis for his first goal of the night and his third successful spot kick of the season.
Six minutes later the Argentine striker picked up the ball on the edge of the Inter box, surrounded by four opposing players he twisted and turned himself into enough space to snap a shot off, low into the back of the net for his second of the night, and more importantly, for the goal that drew Atalanta level.
Coincidentally the goal that capped off El Tanque’s hat-trick came another six minutes later after Giacomo Bonaventura’s low driven cross fell nicely to the feet of the La Dea front man, who coolly drilled home what would become the winning goal in a very emotional night and no doubt a memorable one for all Atalanta fans.
Denis’s performance all but single-handedly secured the vital three points that virtually guaranteed the Bergamo side’s Serie A survival for yet another year. At the same time it also curtailed one of their major rivals hopes of a Champions League finish.
The 31-year -old striker has scored three hattricks during his professional career, two of which have been for Atalanta. Last season he found the net three times during the Nerazzurri’s 4-1 home win over Roma. his only other hattrick was for Napoli during the 2008/09 season when he scored all three goals in their 3-0 home win over Reggina.
El Tanque is clearly enjoying his football at the moment and he is without question in the prime of his career. Only Edinson Cavani, Antonio Di Natale and Stephan El Shaarawy have scored more goals so far in this current Serie A campaign. With 15 goals to his name the powerful Atalanta front man is also one goal away from beating the 16 goals he tallied up last season. Another two goals before the current campaign draws to a close will ensure that Denis has his most fruitful season in eight years.
So why is a man that is approaching the twilight of his career enjoying his most successful time in football? One thing that could be a factor as to why, is ever since he has joined Atalanta he has been branded as their key striker. Previously in his career Denis has played second fiddle to team mates with much higher profiles than his own.
Whilst at Udinese he was in the Shadow of Zebrette legend Antonio Di Natale and the highly rated emerging talent that was Alexis Sanchez. Before for that he was again overshadowed by his fellow compatriot Ezequiel Lavezzi during his time in Naples.
Another theory into Denis’ change in fortune of late could be the motivation he has found with the responsibility of becoming the Nerazzurri’s stand in captain in the absence of Gianpaolo Bellini. Playing alongside young starlets like Bonaventura and Marko Livaja has led Denis to become more of a role model to some of his team mates, it is clear from listening to interviews with a large number of the Atalanta players that they all have a great deal of respect for their experienced goal scorer.
Denis is contracted to Atalanta untill the summer of 2015, if he remains with the Bergamo club until then he will be 33-years-old. He has also gone on record recently declaring that Bergamo has become his second home outside of his native Argentina and he does not intend to play for another Italian club for the remainder of his career.
The Argentine power house will hope to carry his form over into next week when he is likely to lead his La Dea side out against Serie A’s fourth placed team Fiorentina at the Stadio Atleti Azzurri d’Italia. Atalanta have only lost to the Viola once during Denis’ time with the Nerazzurri, he also got his name on the score sheet in both fixtures against them last season.
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