After their European labours, Atalanta will be back on the road to play Monza, with the Briantei making their homecoming after drawing 0-0 to Bologna away.
Monza are the only Italian team Højlund has scored to in two different games.
Rasmus Højlund found his scoring debut with Atalanta in the Monza v Atalanta game played in early September 2022: on the twelfth minute of the second half, it was the Danish striker who broke the deadlock and gave Atalanta the lead mere minutes prior to Marlon’s own goal favoured by Lookman, which sew up the Brianza victory that gave Atalanta the temporary lead in the Serie A standings. In the return game, namely, the season’s finale, Rasmus came full circle and scored Atalanta’s third of the night (and his last official net as a Nerazzurro) in the clash that sealed the team’s comeback in the Europa League. Still, Monza are not the only team to have suffered Højlund’s “scoring wrath” in two different games: after scoring the equaliser in the 2-2 Serie A draw at the Picco stadium against Spezia, Rasmus left his mark also in the Coppa Italia’s return 5-2 walkover played at the Gewiss Stadium.
Monza are the current Serie A team with the lowest number of head-to-heads in all competitions.
Despite being at their second consecutive Serie A season after claiming their first ever promotion to the Italian top-flight two years ago, Monza have already crossed paths with Atalanta beyond the Serie A: to be thorough, the Sunday game will be the 29th match-up so far. Out of the current Serie A roster, only Frosinone (with 8) and Salernitana (16) have crossed swords with the Orobic team thus far. Circling back to Monza, the Briantei are bound to overtake Sassuolo (28) for number of aggregated scuffles against Atalanta.
How many goals has Palladino scored under Gasperini?
One of the offensive lynch-pins of Gasperini’s first stint at Genoa, the current Ac Monza coach Raffaele Palladino played 63 games (namely, 55 Serie A games, 5 Europa League caps and 3 Coppa Italia matches) as a Rossoblù between 2008 and 2010. The 14th most-capped player overall of Gasperini’s era at helm of the Griffin, only Sculli has racked up more caps than Palladino as far as attacking footballers are concerned. During his time at Gasperini’s Genoa, Palladino has scored 7 goals.
