Serie A 2018/19: Atalanta vs Inter

This post originally featured on our comprehensive Serie A analysis sister site, serieaanalysis.com.

Atalanta’s start to the season raised many questions on whether Gasperini’s comments of complaint on the club’s transfer window after his side’s elimination from the Europa League qualifiers had somehow influenced the players’ confidence. In fact, from the 20th of August to the 21st of October, Atalanta failed to win a single game out of the nine played, losing five and drawing four. Worrying results from a team which, despite the negative results, had played well in most of the games, yet, at the same time, comforting, as eventually “La Dea” would have likely turned the dire streak around. This is what happened, as Gasperini’s side won their four following matches since their undeserved defeat to Sampdoria. Given the fact that Inter were on a hot streak as well, on the back of seven consecutive wins in Serie A, the premises of a great game were all in place.

Inter’s dysfunctionalities at the back favour Atalanta

Atalanta started off the game with their usual intensity and man-oriented press out of possession, disrupting any attempt from the visitors to build-up, and forcing Inter into long-balls to the forwards; this basically meant a loss of possession given the numerical superiority the home side had at the back, due to the wingers remaining deep. Spalletti’s side even tried to contest the 2nd balls, however, the aforementioned positioning of the wide men prevented the nerazzurri from having a correct structure in transition to do so.

Atalanta’s man orientations. The wing-backs pressed the full-backs from an initial deep position to achieve numerical superiority on the last line.

Atalanta’s wide connections through rhombi enable them to have a strong support around the ball and options to advance past pressure and up the field, while obliging the opponents to alter their defending ways in order not to leave La Dea’s players with too much time on the ball or free in space. In his The intention probably was to put the recipient of the centre-backs’ first pass of each build-up under immediate pressure, without stretching the team’s horizontal lines like a hypothetical commitment of the centre-midfielder would have done, unlocking a passing lane to the advanced midfielders in the half-space. The full-backs’ aggressiveness exposed an even more important area in Atalanta’s game, though: space behind said players. Inter’s defensive strategy was to congest the ball-side by shifting with the ball-near players, however, Atalanta was able to bypass the visitor’s lines with relative ease due to rotations that opened space in and around their structure.