Ex-AC Milan coach Arrigo Sacchi believes Atalanta were Serie A’s best chance at Champions League success this season.
It’s been a disappointing two weeks for Italian football, as Juventus, Lazio, and Atalanta were all eliminated from the Champions League in the round of 16.
Despite their tame exit at the hands of Real Madrid, Sacchi believes La Dea’s style of play was closest to what is needed to win the tournament.
Writing in La Gazzetta dello Sport, Sacchi said: “La Dea are the Italian team closest to international football. It was not a defeat, but a confirmation of the goodness of the work undertaken by Gasperini and his boys.”
He went on to discuss the difficult place Italian football now finds itself in, in the philosophical manner only Sacchi could.
“The road is that of innovation,” he said. “The Italian way of understanding this sport is ancient and the son of a cultural refusal to change.
“As a result we are not approaching the future, but the past. The international results of the last 11 years have been disheartening and condemn us”.
