Atalanta’s Serie A campaign can now officially begin. Forget about their opening day defeat to Cagliari that was just a false-start.
Last Sunday’s 2-0 home win over Torino is where the ball really starts rolling, and now with the calcio mercato window securely slammed shut it can only be onwards and upwards from here on in. Okay, maybe we may be getting a little bit carried away, but things have certainly taken a turn for the better over the past week for La Dea.
Firstly, Sunday evening’s performance against il Toro showed a dramatic improvement in class and quality than what we saw from the Orobici in their opening game of the season. Stefano Colantuono’s men kept their shape and defensive discipline substantially more than what they did the previous week, they also looked far more comfortable when in possession of the ball and were all round more creative with the play.
One slight worrying thing however is despite scoring three goals in their opening two fixtures, not a single striker or a midfielder for that matter has contributed to them. “But never fear the defence is here” in the form of Super Guglielmo Stendardo and Stefano Lucchini.
Despite being a central defender, Stendardo has 13 career goals to his name. This may not appear to be a vast number, but Willie is no free kick or penalty specialist like Roberto Carlos or Marco Materazzi, in fact the only time the 32-year-old defender ever enters the opposition half it is to add another body to the box at free kicks or corners.
Stendardo has scored two goals already this campaign and while his is highly unlikely to be chasing the Capocannoniere title he has already equalled his highest scoring record during his time in Bergamo. Willie tallied a grand sum of two goals last season, incidentally one of those also came at Cagliari’s expense.
Following the trend Stendardo’s defensive partner Lucchini has become the latest defender to turn into a goal machine after his goal against Torino. Unlike his counter part Lucchini is not accustom to scoring goals in fact the 32-year old averages a goal every 94.6 games.
This is not a light-hearted matter, Atalanta’s league form really stalled last season when their star striker German Denis hit a sticky patch of form. Despite scoring more than 15 goals for La Dea in two successive seasons El Tanque does tend to score the vast majority of goals in what can only be described as rich golden flurries.
Many La Dea fans did have huge hopes for their talented young striker Marko Livaja this campaign. The 20-year-old Croatian had a marvellous pre-season where he continuously found the back of the net almost at will. He then carried that confidence into this season’s Coppa Italia when he scored a brace in the Orobici’s 3-0 win over Bari. But he is yet to register a goal in this year’s Serie A campaign.
Away from the football on the pitch there is a lot to cheer about regards to how the calcio mercato panned out for Atalanta. Not only did they manage to bolster their squad with some highly experienced new arrivals in the form of Mario Yepes and Giulio Migliaccio, but they were also able to keep old of their highly rated and saught-after midfielder Giacomo Bonaventura and their ever promising goalkeeper Andrea Consigli.
Many Atalanta fans would have been watching the final hours of the deadline day slowly countdown, as they expected the worst but it turned out to be one of the most peaceful and tranquil transfer windows for the club in recent years. The man responsible for the Nerazzurri’s successful mercato is their director general Pierpaolo Marino.
Marino is without doubt one of the most underrated men in world football, it always seams to be the players that get all the plaudits followed buy the coaches but what many people fail to realise that its the directors that work back stage that pull the strings and put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
A name that will always be remembered with huge success in Naples Marino was the man that helped Napoli rise from Serie C1 to Serie A in three successive seasons. Obviously the fanatical backing of Aurelio De Laurentiis played its part but it was the wise investments that Marino made that truly took the club forward.
Now the man responsible for launching the careers of Marek Hamsik and Ezequiel Lavezzi has the new task of taking Atalanta that one step closer to the top and becoming more than just the Regina delle provinciali.
He has been fanatically prudent with Antonio Percassi’s money and at the same time demanded top price tags for Colantuono’s stars. But there is far more to it than being a shrewd negotiator when it comes to selling or keeping players as the case may be.
The players can see the direction Marino is steering the club in and therefor the opportunity of a move away from Bergamo to a top club does not look such a bright move as it once would have been.
With the lack of departures during transfer window it would be pretty safe to say that stage one of Marino’s task and Percassi’s dream is complete.
After the international break Atalanta will face a difficult away tip south to face Rafael Benitez’s Napoli side who have won both their opening fixtures.
Last season Atalanta managed to scrape a 1-0 win At home to Napoli only for the Partenopei to win the reverse fixture 3-2. Although many La Dea fans will still be hoping to rekindle their memories of Atalanta’s 3-1 win at the Stadio San Paolo from the previous year.
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