Football
Atalanta cynically substitutes Miranchuk. Want to ruin a Russian career?
Alexey Miranchuk / Photo: © Jonathan Moscrop / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru
Incredibly toxic club behavior.
Aleksey Miranchuk has been in Italy for two years, but it seems that he has not become his own. In Atalanta, the Russian has been a deep reserve player all this time. And even when the Russian began to show something good on the field, he was not encouraged for it. In the next round, he again sat on the bench.
Today Miranchuk has a good chance to break out of this vicious cycle. He is ready to be rented by another Italian club, but Atalanta for some reason is guided by the principle “neither to themselves nor to people.”
Incredibly toxic behavior!
Second chance
After the second unsuccessful season, Miranchuk and his representatives thought about changing their club registration. By that time, it became quite obvious: Gian Piero Gasperini does not need a midfielder and is not even ready to give him playing time in friendly matches. There was no point in staying. Why torture yourself?
Even in winter, Torino showed interest in Miranchuk, and in the summer the club made an official offer to Atalanta – a lease with an option to buy for 12 million euros. Judging by the rumors from Italy, the team’s head coach Ivan Yurich is serious about making Alexei a key figure in his system.
However, not everything is so rosy here either. Juric considers himself a student of Gasperini and plays about the same type of football. This was noticeable even in his work at Verona. Everyone who plays under the guidance of a Croatian specialist needs to put a lot of pressure and practice on defense. At the same time, most experts agree that it would be much more convenient for Miranchuk to play for a team that relies on ball control.
However, it’s a chance anyway. A change of scenery should benefit Miranchuk, because in Atalanta he will not be able to prove anything. Perhaps Turin, which is much more like Moscow than the provincial Bergamo, will stir up Alexei and help return his career to the fast track. But all this will happen only if the transfer takes place.
Atalanta’s stubbornness
It seemed that there was very little left – and Miranchuk could safely pack his bags. But, apparently, problems arose – and Atalanta is to blame, which again vilely substitutes the Russian. According to the authoritative Italian insider Gianluca Di Marzio, the club from Bergamo has not yet agreed to the transfer of Alexei.
If the conditions mentioned (the lease and the right to buy for 12 million) are true, then such behavior does not cause anything but surprise. Do Atalanta bosses think they can get an even bigger deal? Very doubtful. It all looks more like revenge – but it’s not clear why.
They say that with the arrival of new owners from the United States, Gasperini began to play an even more significant role in Atalanta. According to rumors, it was he who, with the help of various kinds of undercover games, arranged everything so that the sports director of the club, Giovanni Sartori, left his post this spring.
Sartori was just the man who took Miranchuk, and Gasperini showed his dissatisfaction with the transfer from the very beginning. Yes, he said the usual words that “Miranchuk is a good footballer”, but he never proved by deed that he believes in it. And now Gasperini seems to be mocking both the former hardware opponent and his players …
Of course, this is just speculation. However, Gasperini’s character is known to everyone. At one time, he almost got into a fight with the leader and captain of Atalanta, Papu Gomez, and then squeezed the player out of the team. Who knows: maybe the constant depression of Josip Ilicic is also the fault of the gray-haired tyrant?
In any case, Miranchuk needs to quickly escape from this viper. Atalanta is no longer the club that made fans from all over the world fall in love with it a few years ago. The fairy tale ends, a crisis sets in: and not only in the legs, but also in the heads.
Source: Sportbox
I am a sports writer and journalist who has written for various online publications including Sportish. I’m originally from the UK but currently live in Toronto, Canada. I’m also an author on Sportish and have written several articles on a variety of sports-related topics.