By No movement, bad passing, and two yellow cards for Giancarlo Gonzalez made the game against Atalanta really difficult for the Rossoblù as Andreas Cornelius came of the bench to win it for La Dea.
The only change from the last match was Vasilis Torosidis in for the injured Ibrahima M’baye. The Greek’s first game in a long time did not last for long though, as he went of injured after 25 minutes, being replaced by Emil Krafth. Neither team managed to take control of the game from the start as both continously lost the ball. Atalanta tried to build several attacks in the first half, but Gonzalez was always there to make the clearance or interception.
Atalanta got three yellow cards in the first half, something which Bologna really should have taken advantage of. Rodrigo Palacio’s runs caused a lot of problems for Atalanta’s defense, and Mattia Caldara got a yellow card for a tackle on him. After 35 minutes, Andrea Petagna got a huge chance through on goal, but blasted it way over the bar. Right at the end of the half Timothy Castagne got through on goal, but his shot was blocked. This led to a good counter by Bologna, as Simone Verdi came through on goal, but he decided to pass instead of shooting, and the chance did not amount to anything.
After the break Atalanta played much better, as Bologna continued to lack movement and misplacing passes. Roberto Donadoni opted for replacing Federico Di Francesco with Sebastien De Maio, changing the formation to 5-3-2. This invited a lot of pressure onto the team, and none of our players managed to impose themselves onto the game.
Then, in the 70th minute, Freuler got all too much time on the ball outside of the box, played the ball through to the substitute Cornelius who had no problems putting the ball past Mirante. In the 74th minute, Gonzalez got a yellow card. Not much later, Bologna counters with Verdi, who shot from outside of the box, unfortunately a bit wide. In the 80th minute, Gonzalez was yet again booked, this time for tearing of the shorts of an Atalanta defender. It was a realy questionable second booking, as Gonzalez was pushed and lost his balance, before eventually grabbing the shorts.
The sending of did not make the game any easier for us, as Atalanta continued to press us for the second goal. That did not come however, with Antonio Mirante making a great save late on in the match.
There were really no Bologna players that stood out for me in this match. Up until the 70th minute, my pick for best Bologna player was going to be Giancarlo Gonzalez, but his red card excludes him. There is bound to be differing opinions on the sending of, but I think it was a really harsh second yellow. The team lacked movement throughout the game, and the few times we did get hold of the ball, we gave it back to Atalanta with a wayward pass. It looked like we did not want to be in possession, as we time and time again rushed our passes.
Anyway, my pick for best Bologna player is Rodrigo Palacio. He caused some problems for Atalanta’s defense, especially in the first half. The fact that we did not take advantage of Caldara’s early yellow card is a chance gone missing. If the front three had made more direct runs challenging their defense, especially Caldara, we could have created more chances. This we did not do, and we did not have a single shot on target during the entire ninety minutes. This was, quite simply, a game to forget.
However, even with today’s loss, we’re sitting pretty in 8th with fourteen points. Now we need to look forward, as we’ve got a tough week coming up. There’s a new match already this Wednesday, with Lazio coming to Bologna. This will be a difficult game, as Lazio has been really impressive so far this season. After that game, we’ve got Roma away on Saturday, another tough opponent for the team. There’s no time to feel sorry for ourselves, as there are a lot of points up for grabs in the next week.
Until next time!
#rossoblù
SempreBologna.com 