Atalanta began their Serie A campaign for the 2020/21 season with a resounding win against Torino last Saturday. The game finished 4-2 to the visitors despite being behind early in the game to an eleventh minute Torino goal.
This was a tough game for Atalanta as Il Toro were beginning to find their feet under new manager, Marco Giampaolo, with the game tight at 3-2 to La Dea going into the break. However, as always under Gian Piero Gasperini, they showed a cutting edge to win the second half one nil, giving them a 4-2 win and a perfect start to the new season.
Giampaolo will be increasingly worried now that his side have picked up their second loss from two games so far, albeit against two very difficult sides in Fiorentina and Atalanta. When he was the manager of Milan last season, a poor start to the season saw him lose his job very early in the campaign. Despite the fact that he must try and change their entire style of play in a short space of time, if he does not start putting points on the board, he may find himself meeting a similar fate to last year.
This article will be a tactical analysis of Atalanta’s win over Torino. It will be an in-depth analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of both sides in their tactics, throughout the game, as well as taking a look at where each team could have improved in their set-up.
Lineups and formations:
For Torino, there were very few changes from the narrow loss against Fiorentina on the opening day of the season. The formation was the 4-3-1-2 system deployed by Giampaolo last weekend and at every club he has previously worked at.
The only two changes of note were Mergin Vojvoda, who is a new summer signing for Torino, in place of Armando Izzo, the Italian centre-back who was deployed as a right-back last week in which he struggled there. The other change was for another new signing, Nicolai Murru, started in place of Christian Ansaldi.
