Atalanta ‘have no intention of stopping’ after reaching the Coppa Italia Final and Europa League semi-final, said Gian Piero Gasperini’s assistant manager Tullio Gritti.
Gasperini sat out the second in his two-match Coppa Italia touchline ban, so Gritti was on the bench against Fiorentina and into the media centre to speak with reporters afterwards.
They will face Juventus in the Coppa Italia Final in Rome on May 15, but star striker Gianluca Scamacca won’t be participating, as he was booked today and will be suspended.
“We must start thinking about this being football as a contact sport and not everything is a yellow card. If he made any contact at all with Nico Gonzalez, it was minimal, but cards are given for anything now,” Gritti told Sport Mediaset.
“If you go for the ankle or something, fine, but otherwise you are not allowed to challenge at all. It’s a foul, it ends there, but otherwise everything is a yellow card. Even the goal that was disallowed for us for a Koopmeiners foul, he got the ball first. You can’t disallow goals and give cards for someone getting there a millimetre first.”
La Dea knew they had to overturn the first leg 1-0 deficit and had the ideal start with Teun Koopmeiners scoring, but despite Nikola Milenkovic’s red card for stopping a clear scoring opportunity, the 10-man Viola still equalised with a Lucas Martinez Quarta free header.
“Obviously, we will evaluate that tomorrow, because we should’ve done far better there, and at the time we were furious…”
Scamacca’s acrobatic volley was about to force extra time, until two goals in stoppages from Ademola Lookman and Mario Pasalic sealed the 4-1 result on the night, 4-2 on aggregate.
Atalanta push on three fronts
They are in the Europa League semi-final against Olympique Marseille next week and still in the hunt for a top five finish in Serie A too. How do they keep all these plates spinning?
“I think it is in the DNA of this Atalanta side, why should we choose out of three tournaments? After all, who says if you choose one, then it will go well? These wonderful players manage to put in great performances every three days, whenever you think they reached their peak, they top it.
“It is a fantastic moment for us, we will enjoy it and hopefully something will come at the end of it. Right now, we have no intention of stopping.”
Gasperini regularly says that he does not need silverware, because his work with Atalanta over the years is already writing history, and Gritti agrees to a degree.
“If you look at the games against Liverpool, where all of Europe recognised us, that is worth something. Naturally, a trophy would be great too, but what Atalanta have been doing over the last eight years is remarkable. All the staff, the players who came through this team, they all left their mark.”
Atalanta have also qualified for the 2024-25 edition of the Supercoppa Italiana Final Four tournament with Inter, Juve and most likely Milan.