Gian Piero Gasperini hopes his Atalanta side will have the same enthusiasm as in 2017 when meeting Raków Częstochowa tomorrow and suggests he won’t lose his sleep over Gianluca Scamacca’s injury.
La Dea are preparing for their first Europa League game of the season against Raków Częstochowa on Thursday.
They’ll be without their star striker Scamacca who has been ruled out for a month due to a muscle injury.
“Of course, I am sorry, but we have 20 players available and we can find different solutions. It happens to suffer injuries when you play football. It happens to us and other teams too,” Gasperini said at a pre-match press conference as quoted by TMW.
This will be Atalanta’s seventh European campaign in the Gasperini era. The first time they played in the Europa League with Gasp was in 2017 when they beat Everton 3-0 at the Mapei Stadium in Reggio Emilia.
“The game against Everton, the first one in the Europa League, was one of the best in terms of result and performance,” Gasp recalled.
“I remember there was incredible enthusiasm and after that, we played in European competitions for six years straight. We earned a new qualification last season and now we must start again with the same enthusiasm.”
Atalanta have had highs and lows in Serie A this term and lost the most recent league match away in Florence.
“The result was determined by some gifts we gave to the opponents,” admitted Atalanta’s coach.
“We must remember the good things we did but we can’t look backwards this season, whether we win or lose.”
Lastly, the Nerazzurri boss was asked if his Atalanta side would have the same attitude as Lazio, pushing to get a result until the end. Gasperini argued that his men have already shown the same mentality.
“We scored at the end of the game in Sassuolo and Pasalic came close to scoring on Sunday,” he said.
“Provedel was fantastic yesterday, I’ll tell Musso and Carnesecchi to run forward for corner kicks,” he concluded smiling.