Gian Piero Gasperini answered the questions from the press on the eve of Valencia-Atalanta, the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 second leg clash.

“We are really sorry and concerned about what is happening in Italy and in the Bergamo area. There is a strange climate in the dressing room because we are strongly involved in this situation, that can be really dangerous, it is for sure very complicated. Despite that, we have to try to isolate ourselves from the context. We are aware that this would be the best result in Atalanta’s history and we also know that a positive result from our side and the potential qualification could ease the disappointment. We hope we can make our fans happy”.

“The match behind closed doors? It is something we are not used to and our opponents would have had for sure a bigger push. We must think about the pitch, focus on our performance and what we prepared during training, play our match, keeping Valencia’s strengths and weaknesses in mind”.

“We arrive here after a nine days pause and we played just one match between the two ties against Valencia (Lecce-Atalanta 2-7, ed.). We have trained well over these weeks, although we would have preferred playing since we were in our best moment, but everything has rightly taken second place. This is not an alibi, tomorrow we will take to the pitch like it was a league match, focused, thinking about the game in its entirety and without trying to end it as soon as possible”.