“It’s difficult to comment on a match like this. We had a great team in front of us, to whom we congratulate, but there is great disappointment with the result, there were decisive episodes that we didn’t understand.” Atalanta’s CEO, Luca Percassi, commented on the Dea’s defeat at San Siro in this way: recognizing Inter’s merits but highlighting what in his opinion were “very serious errors on the part of the referee and VAR”. “I’m talking about the first goal canceled out in an incomprehensible way,” explains Percassi. “How can we cancel a goal like this, despite the images? I’m not here to open a debate but to express our thoughts. De Ketelaere’s goal was valid, at most there should have been a penalty for us. The other scandalous episode it’s the penalty given to Inter. No one in the stadium understood what was happening, 5-6 minutes passed before they found something that no one had seen, especially with the linesman who had raised his flag. We are deeply sorry, it was a potentially beautiful match which instead was heavily influenced by refereeing episodes in a rampant way that decided the result in favor of Inter. Miranchuk’s foul wasn’t there, the VAR created the effect of being able to interpret objective things: it’s very simple, there’s no ‘It’s a touch of the arm, it’s Bastoni who touches the ball, we don’t interpret very clear images. Sorry, these very complicated matches are conditioned by episodes that move them in a decisive way.”
Gasp: “We were fine as long as the game was on”
Gasperini, however, prefers not to talk about refereeing and clarifies in the press conference: “Usually I talk about rules when I win. Maybe Inter would have won anyway, but it would have been a real game. We are involved in all the competitions, the matches are becoming more and more decisive, sometimes these evenings also happen and we have to be ready to archive them and think about the next one. We are there to compete us and Bologna with Roma, Lazio, Naples, Fiorentina, who knows maybe even Torino. For some teams, Europe is fundamental, for others it is the highest goal.” Then the analysis of the match: “In the second half I didn’t even see my team that bad. We have made many changes and the race became a training session, even on the occasion of the third goal. After that I don’t think it was a Serie A match anymore. I had the feeling that we are ready to play the next matches, we did well in the first half against a very strong Inter. This is not the type of performance that can affect us morally, also considering what we did while the game was on.”