Atalanta fall against Inter yet again while Inzaghi aims for the stars | Nicky Bandini

There was no timidity left in the city of Bergamo, no desire to hide behind underdog status. The thousand Atalanta fans who descended on the team’s training ground on Saturday brought a banner insisting: “We Believe”. One day later, as their team prepared to kick off against Inter, another was unfurled in the north stand of Gewiss Stadium. “Needle and thread are in the drawer,” it read. “10 finals to stitch it on to our chest.”

The reference of course was to the Scudetto – a badge in the colours of the Italian flag that Serie A’s winners get to wear on their kit. Atalanta have never enjoyed that honour. They have won only two pieces of major silverware in club history – the 1963 Coppa Italia and last season’s Europa League. In Serie A they have never finished higher than third, and even that is a recent development, achieved for the first time in 2019.

Yet Atalanta’s players had earned their supporters’ belief with 17 wins in 28 games and most recently a 4-0 rout of Juventus that gave them the best goal difference in the division. A win over Inter would put them into a three-way tie with their opponents and Napoli in first place, with only nine rounds left.

There was just one problem: Atalanta never beat Inter. The Nerazzurri from Bergamo had not got the better of the Nerazzurri from Milan since November 2018. Even as Gian Piero Gasperini has transformed Atalanta’s identity over the last decade, breaking their trophy drought and making them perennial European qualifiers, he has remained haunted by the club who fired him after five games in charge.

Inter had beaten Atalanta twice already this season, clobbering them 4-0 in the league back in August, then 2-0 in the semi-finals of the Supercoppa. For a moment on Sunday it appeared no lessons had been learned, Marcus Thuram running clean through to receive a return ball from Lautaro Martínez before side-footing shot past the goalkeeper Marco Carnesecchi.

Gasperini’s team caught a break, Thuram’s shot striking the inside of a post and rebounding out. Then they started to show that they did know a different way to play after all: holding their shape in a 3-5-2 with two well-formed lines in front of the ball when out of possession. Their usual habit of pressing high was tempered.

It seemed to be working, Inter largely kept at arm’s length for the remainder of the half. At the far end, Yann Sommer had to make a sharp save to keep out a header from Mario Pasalic. The Croatian’s inclusion ahead of Charles De Ketelaere in the starting XI spoke to Gasperini’s approach: more muscle, less freedom.

Did an interruption at the start of the second half break Atalanta’s rhythm? The match was suspended for more than five minutes after the Inter players Nicolò Barella and Hakan Calhanoglu, preparing to take a corner, noticed a supporter in distress and called for medical assistance. Carried out on a stretcher, the fan was later reported to be safe and conscious.

When play resumed, Inter scored immediately, Carlos Augusto meeting Calhanoglu’s corner with a header beyond Carnesecchi. Had Atalanta been harmed by the pause, defenders losing focus and legs getting stiff? Gasperini acknowledged the possibility at full-time, but did not dwell on it, observing: “The match was still long, still open.”

Instead, he lamented the red card shown to Éderson in the 81st minute. Already on a yellow, the Brazilian earned his second by reacting to the award of a corner with sarcastic applause. It was easy to empathise with Gasperini’s frustration at a crucial game being impacted so severely for a relatively harmless act, but this sanction is not new in Serie A.

Lautaro made it 2-0 to Inter soon afterwards, blasting home after neat combination play with Yann Bisseck and Barella. Gasperini received a red card for protesting. Inter should have scored again, Davide Frattesi firing straight at Carnesecchi from five yards out. They then finished with 10 themselves after Alessandro Bastoni picked up a needless second yellow of his own.

In the end it was the same old story, Inter beating Atalanta for an eighth consecutive time. A decisive blow in the title race? Simone Inzaghi’s team now hold a six-point advantage over Atalanta as well three points over Napoli, who drew away to relegation-threatened Venezia and have won just once in seven games.

Gasperini, at least, was not prepared to raise the white flag. “In a league where everyone always says the important thing is to finish in the top four, Bergamo says it wants to win the Scudetto,” he said, referencing the city before his team in a nod to Atalanta’s fans. “Maybe after today’s defeat it all gets more difficult, we’ll see … Inter are very strong but we will try. Seeing as everyone else is hiding, I will say we would like to fight for this title.”

How easy, though, will Inter be to dislodge? The reigning champions have appeared vulnerable at times this season, their failure to win any of seven games (Supercoppa included) against Milan, Juventus and Napoli held as evidence that this is no longer the side who finished 19 points clear of second place last term.

It is certainly possible to make a case that this is a team past its peak, with the oldest average starting XI (29.1 years old) in Serie A as well as the lowest number of players used. How could such a group not feel the impact of competing on three fronts through a long season?

Yet arguably their best player on Sunday was the 37-year-old Francesco Acerbi, back from the hamstring injury that kept him out for the middle part of this season and once more looking unsurpassable in the centre of defence. A player who has twice kept Erling Haaland quiet, and who led the shut out of Ademola Lookman and Mateo Retegui this weekend.

A few crucial pieces have been lost from the side that reached the Champions League final two seasons ago, and even then, one could at least make an argument for Thuram as an upgrade on Edin Dzeko or Romelu Lukaku in attack, just like Sommer over André Onana in goal.

Inter won the treble under José Mourinho in 2010. Photograph: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters

If Atalanta have shown courage in openly aspiring to a league title, Inter deserve equivalent praise for aiming even higher. When Inzaghi was asked about competing for the double last week, he held up three fingers to indicate that Inter were chasing the treble. In another interview a few days later, he corrected himself, saying he had meant to say quadruple, with the Club World Cup coming up in June.

When Inter won their – and Italian football’s – only previous treble, under José Mourinho in 2010, their league form also suffered, the Nerazzurri barely pipping Roma to the domestic title by two points. Competing on every front is draining. They will return from the international break to face a two-legged Coppa Italia semi-final against Milan, as well as their Champions League quarter-final against Bayern Munich.

Perhaps that will offer encouragement to Atalanta and Napoli, helping them to believe that Inter could still slip. All three of them still have tricky fixtures to come, including appointments with the soaring Bologna team that thrashed Lazio 5-0 this weekend.

Or maybe Inter are once more the canny rider who has conserved their energy just to pull away from the peloton at the end. “Everyone’s saying Inter could finish up without winning anything,” said Inzaghi on Sunday. “That’s sport, we know sport can finish that way. But we want to play as many games as we can.”