Gian Piero Gasperini’s Atalanta: Finesse, Fearless and Industrious!
Who would have thought a humbly built Atalanta side would be busting the charts amidst Europe’s biggest sides? Guess what, in the 2019–20 season so far, Atalanta have scored the third highest goals among Europe’s top five leagues with 70. Remember, we are talking more goals than the likes of teams managed by Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, more goals than teams with Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo in their lineups. Gian Piero Gasperini has been making heads turn since a couple of years with the work he has done with Atalanta, however this season has especially been special. Today Atalanta are one of the best attacking sides in Europe and a well-oiled machine which functions smoothly in harmony. Of course, they have intelligent, hard-working, technically sound players with the right mentality but credit firstly needs to go to Gasperini for having punched his stamp of football strongly on the team. The idea is clear, play with courage, want the ball, attack fearlessly and be on the front foot the entire game.
This is the simplest explanation to how they are among the highest scoring sides in Europe. They want to attack, they want to score, they don’t settle and keep going over and over again. They have the most touches in the penalty area in Serie A with 881, yet another astonishing stat that brings out their intention to attack. Only Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea have higher touches in the attacking penalty area in entire Europe’s top 5 leagues. While Gasperini’s men continue to astonish with extraordinary attacking stats, they do not even depend on one or two stars to carry their team as well. Although Josip Ilicic and Duvan Zapata along with Luis Muriel have done the majority of the scoring for them, they remain to be the only team in Europe’s top 5 leagues to have 6 different players with 5 or more goals. Even if we choose to ignore the strikers, their midfielders being Papu Gomez, Remo Freuler, Mario Pasalic, Ruslan Malinovskiy, Martin De Roon have together scored 18 goals.
So how have they out-attacked so many teams with literally no stars, no individual brilliance, no record-breaking transfers to bring in talent? It is totally down to the team’s willingness to play with a plan, tactical discipline and how they complement each other on the pitch like poetry in motion. Let’s have a look at their tactical layout from attack to defence:
Starting XI:
As you may have already seen, Atalanta field a very Italian 3–1–4–2, three solid centerbacks, two high flying wing backs, a well-balanced midfield of silk and steel combining with deadly finishing up front in attack. These are the preferred first team choices for the respective positions. In midfield, they have alternate options in the form of Freuler, Malinovskiy for the two holding mid positions while Luis Muriel is an alternative to the two strikers.
Build-Up:
Gasperini’s side uses combinations in the wide areas using numerical superiority to progress the ball quickly into the middle and then the final third. Their combinations involve quick, one-touch passing with the players showing a lot of movement from their starting positions, hence pulling their markers out of shape.
Once the play is switched, the four players interchange positions with each other making it difficult for the opponents to mark. By the time, the opponent is able out the rotational movement of the players, Atalanta are comfortable in possession and ready to progress the ball forward.
When there is space and time available for them to move the ball upfield from the wide areas, they would make the same rotational movement (Right Central Midfielder drops back to Right CB, Right CB goes wide to Right Wing-Back, Right Wing-Back pushes high into the attacking third, Right Forward drops to Right Central Midfield) after which they would push up and create a chance out of it.
Asymmetry:
This is a key characteristic that you will observe with almost all top managers in the World. To add unpredictability while on the attack, teams create asymmetric patterns to confuse the opponents. There is a certain term which is used by those who study football, ‘Organized Chaos’. This is part of Atalanta’s attacking blueprint as well. Martin De Roon, the Right Central Midfielder stays back while Left Central Midfielder (usually Freuler or Pasalic) pushes up and supports the attack. To compensate for De Roon staying back, Right CB (Toloi) pushes up and acts as an additional attacker.
The numbers also seem to prove the asyemmtry in attack as being a center-back, Rafael Toloi averages 165 yards per game of ball carried towards goal as compared to De Roon who averages just 125 yards per game of ball caried towards goal. Toloi stands as the fifth highest in Atalanta when it comes to yards per game of ball carried towards goal, a good attacking stat for a center-back. Despite being a center-back, Toloi has provided 5 assists this season thanks to his role that pushes him forward to offer support to the attack.
Now let’s have a look at the same stat for the left flank. As you may have seen, Djimsiti is at LCB, Pasalic/ Freuler at LCM. Freuler stands at 163 yards per game of ball carried towards goal, Pasalic stands at 133 yards per game of ball carried towards goal but Djimsiti is among the least with just 99 yards per game of ball carried towards goal.
Alejandro Gomez: The Heartbeat of Atalanta’s attacking
Yes, you read it right! Anything and everything for Atalanta in the attacking-half revolves around this little Argentine wizard, Alejandro Gomez. He takes up the responsibility to carry the ball from the middle-third into the final-third and progress into next phase of attack. Owing to this, he often drops deep into midfield and facilitates build-up play.
Gomez has the highest xG Build up in Serie A this season with 11.69.
For those of you who didn’t know, xG Build up is the stat that quantifies the quality of build-up, thereby crediting the players involved as well. In simple words, xG Build-up is the expected % of a play in possession to lead to a goal. If a certain build up has a 40% chance of becoming a goal, then the xG Build-up number is 0.40 and this number is credited to all the players involved in the build-up barring the player who gave the assist and scored the goal. The real surprise here is how Papu Gomez has managed to be score 6 goals and provide 10 assists himself and yet have such a high xG Build-up number. This indicates the Argentine’s importance in the team as he is either involved in scoring the goal, assisting the goal and if not both, he is definitely involved in the build-up to the goal.
But wait, we aren’t done trying to quantify how much of a genius Papu is. His ability to take on players is criminally underrated and owing to the low centre of gravity, his close control and dribbling are a handful to deal with. Gasperini enables this side of the Gomez’s game as well as when there are no clear passing routes, he surprises the opponents with a dribble penetrating right through the heart of the defence. In the current season, Papu Gomez averages 516 yards covered per game with the ball, out of which 325 yards per game are towards goal. Both of these numbers are the highest in 2019–20 Serie A, which clearly shows his ball-carrying ability. While Gomez tops this number in Italy, this is there right at the top of Europe’s top five leagues as well. To give you an idea of what he has done, we can look at the ultimate benchmark for ball-carrying, Lionel Messi. Even Messi averages 479 yards covered per game with the ball, out of which 279 are towards goal. This is not to say that Papu Gomez is a better ball carrier than Messi but just to give an idea of how effective he has been to Gasperini’s side in the middle of the pitch.
Warriors on the Wings:
Robin Gosens and Hans Hateboer have been arguably the best pair of wing backs in Italy this season playing key roles in both attack and defence. The flanks play an important role in Atalanta’s attack as they use the wide areas right from building up play to creating chances in the final third. In Serie A 2019–20, Atalanta is the 2nd highest team to use the flanks to attack with around 76% of their attacks coming from the flanks and just 24% through the middle. This is justified given how effective the two wing-backs Gosens and Hateboer, have been for Gasperini.
Although the pair have together produced 7 goals and 8 assists in Serie A, the interesting part is that Gosens has scored all 7 goals and provided 5 assists while Hateboer has scored no goals and provided only 3 assists. Here is where the asymmetry is proven right yet again as two wing-backs of the same team playing in opposite flanks have drastically different roles. On one flank, we have Gosens who is scoring, assisting, arriving in the box and shooting from threatening areas while on the other flank, there is Hateboer who is less adventurous in terms of making runs into the box or testing the goal keeper but gets the job done in terms of linking up with the attackers to create chances from the right flank.
Snipers: Another Dimension to the Attack!
Atalanta are trained snipers as they don’t shy away from testing the goalkeeper from outside the box. This adds another dimension to their attack as when they aren’t closed down in time with their attackers within shooting range, then they pull the trigger fearlessly. In fact, they are the most effective shooters from outside the box with most goals from outside the box in Europe’s top five leagues: 13. Their latest signing being Ruslan Malinovskiy has helped them serve this purpose as the Ukranian arguably has the strongest left-foot in football today which he often puts to use to find the net.
High-Pressure Defending
High pressure and willingness to win the ball back and attack as soon as possible often goes hand in hand. Atalanta are no exception to this as well with a PPDA (Opponent Passes Per defensive action) of 7.53, which is among the least in the whole of Europe. This in simple words mean that for every 7.53 passes made by the opposition, Atalanta will commit a defensive action. To give you guys an idea of how high the pressing is by Atalanta, the likes of Liverpool, Manchester City, Barcelona and Real Madrid have a PPDA of more than 8, yet another area in which Atalanta have out done some of the best teams across the continent. Gasperini’s men not only commit to pressing but press effectively as well as taking into account the 2019–20 Serie A, no team in the league has a higher press success than Atalanta who stand at 32%. A successful press is if the ball is won back within 5 seconds of pressure.
Owing to the high pressure by Atalanta, the opponents are forced to be quick and accurate in progressing the ball from the middle third into the penalty area. This either forces the opponent to be too adventurous and risk losing possession as they attempt to out play the press or go back into their defensive third with the hope of pulling Atalanta out of position during the press. Atalanta have the least passes allowed to the opponent 20 yards from goal in Serie A this season: 93.
Atalanta have also faced the 2nd least shots on target in the entire league at 86 with only Inter ahead of them with a slightly better figure at 83.
A very simple rule in football is that you don’t concede goals when you don’t concede shots and Gasperini’s men have done the job in this aspect as well. Despite such crazy numbers on the defensive side as well, what makes Atalanta concede? Let’s remember that although Atalanta have the best attacking numbers, they have conceded atleast 10 goals more than the Serie A’s top three teams: Juventus, Lazio and Inter. Now comes the tricky part: While actual goals conceded by Atalanta is 34, the xGC is just 27.5, which means they have conceded 6.5 more goals than they should have.
A possible reason for this could be sub-standard goalkeeping by Pierluigi Gollini as he has the worst Save % in Serie A with 63%. Goalkeepers are generally the easy targets when it comes to identifying the mistakes in a team. As the saying goes, it never matters how many you save but people always look at the ones you conceded. Although there is some truth to it, to have 19 goalkeepers above you in terms of shots saved per shots on target faced means there is huge room for improvement. This is an area where Gasperini may hope to see improvements as otherwise he would be forced to look for replacements over the summer.
Atalanta are no more among the minnows who hope for an upset and certainly have the ability to compete with the Europe’s finest. They have given more than enough evidence for the same when they sent Valencia thrashing out of the UEFA Champions League in the Round-of-16 stage to reach the Quarter-Finals for the time in the club’s history. If they are able to keep the momentum going and continually travel in the right direction, it is only a matter of time before the Giants not only take them seriously but actually hope to avoid facing them in the big stages.
Sources:
www.fullmatchreplay.com
www.this11.com
www.understat.com
www.fbref.com
www.smarterscout.com
www.whoscored.com
www.sofascore.com
