Europa League From asphyxiation to dream, without a happy ending: the chronicle of Sporting-Atalanta
Atalanta played in the first half and didn’t let play. Amorim made a good change at half-time. Leo’s mobility scrambled Italian markings.
It is said, in football, that one team plays what the other lets play. That was the picture of the first half of the Portuguese-Italian duel in Alvalade, where an intractable, tactically disciplined and highly pressing Atalanta, did not let Sporting put foot on a green branch. At half-time, in addition to the 0-2 lead, the Bergamo team had more possession (45/55), more passes (229/321), more corners (2/6) and fewer fouls (3/4). And the Lions, in the first 45 minutes, were not able, for once, to get dangerously close to Argentine Juan Musso’s goal. If there was a title just for the opening 45 minutes, it would be “Italian pressure cooker cooked lions football.” In fact, a Sporting that was too soft, without the ability to anticipate and arguments to counteract the transalpine high pressure, suffered well and never managed to balance the operations. On the left of the Italian team, Ruggeri and Lookman discovered a highway between the backs of Fresneda and Diomande, which was not compensated by Morita, opening the way for several panicked situations for Adán’s goal. With a midfield always blocked, where Hjulmand lacked the art and imagination to let go, and which was systematically too far away from Paulinho and Pedro Gonçalves, the lions, unable to build from the back, were left to resort to direct play for Gyokeres, who was easy prey for Atalanta’s trio of center-backs. The Italians’ advantage at half-time was fair, and in the air, in the face of so much superiority, there was doubt as to the ability of Sporting to react…