Thursday 02 / May / 2024
Liverpool : Liverpool head coach Jurgen Klopp stated that Italian teams are hard to play and pinpointed various reasons that make them a hard opponent to face ahead of their UEFA Europa League quarter-final clash against Atalanta FC at Anfield.
Teams from Serie A have often dominated European competitions since the likes of Paolo Maldini, Gennaro Gattuso, Fabio Cannavaro and many more shared the same field.
Even in the present generation, Italian teams have left some of the top teams across Europe stunned with their sensational play.
Liverpool were at the receiving end in 2020 when Atalanta clinched a 2-0 victory at their fortress, Anfield, in the UEFA Champions League group stage clash.
"It's really outstanding and we know what Atalanta are all about. Gasperini (coach) is doing an incredible job there for years and years and it's difficult to play against Italian teams. It always was: they are tactically super-disciplined and super-dangerous in a lot of areas, so we have to be at our best to get into the next round over these two legs. We are not thinking about the final or something like that, we really have to be at our best," Klopp said in the pre-match press conference ahead of the Atalanta clash on Thursday night, as quoted from the club's official website.
Gasperini was the manager of Atalanta when they faced Liverpool in the UCL in 2020. Since then, the manager has stayed with the club but a lot of players have left the team and new players have replaced them.
Despite the changes, Klopp expects Atalanta to pose a challenge to them at Anfield, just like they did four years ago.
"A couple of key positions changed but the manager is there and that means the way they play is quite consistent and the way they defend is quite consistent. But the skillset of the different players make it different. But we expect a super-organised opponent, so that's what we expect. An experienced opponent as well. It means two legs, [the] first [one] away is a clear advantage, what everybody says. It just will be interesting. We are not the same [from] three-and-a-half years ago. We are definitely different and the opponent probably as well. But in these three-and-a-half years I saw 1,500 games probably. I saw Atalanta playing but I cannot really compare it with three-and-a-half years ago because that's not very prominent in my mind. But it will be tricky for both," Klopp added.
