Office against courage – AS.com

TO Gian Piero Gasperini, Atalanta coach, likes to hang photos and messages for internal use on the walls of the changing room. There was Michael Jordan's and the last 26 shots that he missed and that helped him achieve success. TAlso a photograph of a pack of wolves in attack disposition: “The front row sets the pace, those behind protect the group and the leader sees to it that no one is left behind. “A philosophy of the game, a philosophy of life. And a Chinese proverb from the 5th century BC:” Defend you makes you invincible, but if you want to win, you must attack. ” “He changed the message of 'don't lose, the draw is good' and made us believe that we could beat Juve or Napoli”recalls Dutch midfielder De Roon. So it would also be advisable to hang a notice in the Madrid dressing room in case someone takes for granted the classification for the quarterfinals based on the result of the first leg and the very short history of the Italians.

Atalanta is a team without complexes or precautions. Of his seven defeats in the course, only two were away. Y In this Champions League he already won in Liverpool and in Amsterdam at Ajax. So he plays with the courage of someone who has nothing to lose because he is far above his story. And it goes to the top of gunpowder: have scored three or more goals in 17 of 37 games this year and it already has 18 scorers on the squad. White's advantage is that the door is often left behind (Follow the game live on As.com).

Colombian duo or Ilicic

Madrid will find a signature team in Valdebebas, a rarity of calcium. Cristina, Gasperini's wife, confesses that she often gets up in the middle of the night and writes down tactical solutions on her computer for the next meeting. “Mind you, we only train them when I'm sure they're going to work,” he says. He will have revealed this week to find Freuler's replacement (Pessina), sent off in the first leg for a knockdown of Mendy that Gasperini and Bergamo found less punishable than the referee. And he also turns the hook (Pasalic) and the two ends (the Colombian scorers, Duván Zapata and Muriel, who add 32 goals, or a mestizo attack with the left-handed Ilicic).

In any case, Zidane's team will face a robust team with strong convictions. A kind of pocket Seville, very smart in the market. The German Gosens, his left winger, who has ten goals, was removed from the Dutch Heracles for a million in 2017. Pasalic, on loan from Chelsea five times, has not played anywhere as well as here. Even Muriel, who played at Sevilla, is heavy artillery. And his quarry in Zingonia leaves a lot of money: 160 million in transfers in the last three years without the team getting worse.

On the side of Madrid is the office. In today's eleven there will be five players over thirty: Nacho, Ramos, Modric, Benzema and Kroos. The first four have raised four Champions League titles with Madrid. The German, three. And there, seven years later, they are still the most important players on the team, which speaks excellently well of them and badly of those who came to relieve them.

Without Casemiro

Today will be missing Casemiro , whose influence on the team has been expansive. Zidane was slow to discover him, then he became indisputable, later irreplaceable and now it is up to the second scorer of the team. Of the last three European games in which he was absent, Madrid lost two. And Valverde, his replacement, has suffered an unexpected braking.

The experience against Elche invites us to think that Zidane will not repeat with the three centrals, although the drawing will not change the eleven. Nacho will play, of central or of right back. And Lucas Vázquez too, as a lane or winger. And there is only one vacancy, on the left wing, the place reserved for Hazard and which he never occupies. Yesterday he fell again, due to an injury to the psoas, one of his few muscles that had remained intact until now. There are three candidates for the square: Asensio, the one who plays the most; Vinicius, the one who scores the most and assists the most, and Rodrygo, the one with the best aim.

The Madrid offers some alarming data: it has been falling in eighths for two years and have not won any of the last four home knockout matches (tied with Bayern and fell with Juventus, Ajax and City). This will be the first in Valdebebas and without an audience. So be on notice. “We don't lose. We win or we learn,” Gasperini likes to repeat. In Bergamo he had to learn …