Over the course of an Instagram Live with Christian Vieri, Atalanta’s ‘Papu’ Gómez discussed his first impressions on arriving in Bergamo, the development of the squad around him and the pain of Gian Piero Gasperini’s training sessions.
“I was coming from Catania, and everyone speaks of how good fans in the south are. But when I arrived here I was surprised by the welcome – people here are crazy from that point of view. You live well here.”
“We have teammates who work their socks off for us, who run thrice as much as others, like De Roon or Freuler. For a provincial team like Atalanta to have a forward line with three big names is crazy, when you remember that we don’t have a budget like the big clubs. Even if every year we sell two or three starters, we always come out with something good.”
“The important thing is that the base of the squad is still here: I’ve been here for six years, then you have Masiello, De Roon and Freuler: the spine of the team is there and everyone adapts quickly, makng everything easier.”
[On Gasperini’s training sessions] “I don’t enjoy myself durng the week at all, matchday is my rest day. [Josip] Iličić complains about everything, but that’s how he is, sometimes he jokes around. He has a strange body, his back often hurts and he has to be careful about what he does in trainng. He’s very impressive though, last year [Duván] Zapata was scoring all the goals, but this year he’s incredible.”
