Atalanta midfielder Teun Koopmeiners sat down with Serie A ahead of Matchday 13 to speak about the club’s current form and goals, his transfer to La Dea, and Manager Gian Piero Gasperini.
Atalanta’s Form This Season
After finishing third for three successive seasons, Atalanta came eighth last term. That led some to believe the goddess had lost her powers – but this term, the team have lost just once in Serie A and Koopmeiners belives that all of the club’s targets are achievable.
“We wanna go back in Europe to play those matches here for the fans. If you see what kind of energy it gives them over the last couple of years when we played those matches, I think Atalanta as a club right now we belong there, and I think that’s the prime goal to end the season with.”
Koopmeiners Discusses Atalanta Transfer
Those are the words of one of la Dea’s key players at the moment, a Dutch box to box midfielder who looks like he was born to move to the Bergamo rhythm.
“I watched the playing style a lot, I watched some videos, some games before I came here. And the way they played, they always went forward, they created so many chances, scored a lot of goals, so it was attractive to me, so I was like “I really would like to play in that system” and I have really no regrets of coming here.”
Atalanta Manager Gian Piero Gasperini
No regrets now – but Atalanta and Koopmeiners took a while to get along. However, once the Dutchman did become a starter for Gian Piero Gasperini, he stayed there.
“In training I understood what he wanted but it is all about doing a lot of times, about doing it day in and day out to make it more automatically instead of thinking all the time “I need to be here, where do I need to be now?”. That was in the beginning because it’s so different. It takes a couple of games to get to know the system, and I think that after 5-10 games you can also put your own influence in the system because it’s not just only about playing the system but also to be of some value for the team. I have a really good relationship with the coach. I feel a lot of trust from him, I think you can see that by the minutes I play. I think if you’re in the trainings, you do some much tactics. You see how much think about the game. I think that separates him, from not all the coaches – because there are great coaches who all think a lot about the game – he is always trying to tell us what can happen in the game or what we should do in the game; and yeah, it’s also fun in the game when you play, you see things come up like what you discussed out during the week.”