Italy’s top football writer has warned Celtic are in for another bruising Champions League beating against the ‘magician’ of a coach he rates as the best boss in Serie A.
Veteran Gazzetta dello Sport journalist Fabio Licari believes Brendan Rodgers and his players are in for another traumatic experience when they face rampant Europa League winners Atalanta in Bergamo – just three weeks after a seven goal clobbering in Dortmund.
Speaking exclusively to Record Sport’s trailblazing online show, Hotline Live, Licari predicts more pain is awaiting Scotland’s champions this evening at the Gewiss Stadium against Gian Piero Gasperini’s side. Licari – who has worked for Italy’s iconic sports paper for 35 years – said: “He is a magician. I have a personal admiration for Gasperini.
“Maybe sometimes he asks too much from his players so what happens? Sometimes Atalanta show a strange movement like a parabola. They can be fantastic for two or three matches and then they are bad because the players need to recover and then start again. In this moment it’s not good for Celtic to meet Atalanta because they were fantastic in their last match.
“Pep Guardiola once said that playing against Atalanta is like going to the dentist. The reason for that is that Manchester City suffered against Atalanta – it was very, very painful. Gasperini still jokes about this quote but it’s the truth.
“With Atalanta versus Celtic I think Atalanta can win maybe 2-0 or 3-1. Atalanta always score and I saw Celtic were a very unbalanced team against Borussia Dortmund. They were fantastic in their first match against Slovan Bratislava but it was desperation in the second match. And Atalanta is more close to Borussia than to Bratislava.”
Licari rates 66-year-old maverick Gasperini among his country’s managerial giants and even higher than the modern day elites like Italian national boss Luciano Spalletti, former Juve manager Max Allegri and Euros winner Roberto Mancini.
He went on: “Gasperini may not have the name of Spalletti, Alegri or Mancini – the biggest names in Italian football – but I think he is the best. He is No.1.
“He is different from every other Italian coach. He has an idea and philosophy, he thinks just about a team which is aggressive, dominant, who have the ball, who run a lot and go deep into the area of the opponent. Atalanta in the last four or five years, I think, have played the best football in Italy, for sure.
“They don’t have the best players like Juventus, Milan or Inter but if Gasperini can have the players of Inter, Milan or Juventus, for sure Atalanta would win the league.
“It’s difficult for him to manage a big team because he had a bad experience at Inter many years ago, after Mourinho had left the club. Going from Mourinho to Gasperini was like moving from the old era to the new era. So when Gasperni arrived Inter gave him something like two matches before firing him because they did not have the patience for him. But it was a big, big mistake because Gasperini needs some time to build a top team.
“At Atalanta now the team is built. He’s been there for nearly nine years and he is more than just a coach – he is like Alex Ferguson was at Manchester United – he has a relationship with the board and he organises everything. After he won the Europa League he was tempted to change clubs but he said, “No, it’s better I stay here and start a new cycle,’. And, for me, Atalanta can be one of the first four teams in the final ranking of the Italian league.”