Atalanta beat Lecce 4-0 on Monday as braces from new Marco Brescianini and Mateo Retegui gave the Europa League champions a hugely impressive start to their Serie A season.
Italian striker Retegui and Brescianini have stepped up for Atalanta as coach Gian Piero Gasperini battles injuries and two of the stars of a historic transfer crusade.
Brescianini, who arrived on Friday from relegated Frosinone, replaced Dutch midfielder Teun Koopmeiners, who needs to sign for Juventus.
The 24-year-old opened the scoring 10 minutes before half-time when he headed in after Retegui’s header was met by Wladimiro Falcone and with a bit of luck scored the fourth in the 66th minute.
Retegui signed from Genoa after Italian teammate Gianluca Scamacca tore his ACL earlier this month and scored his opening seconds before half-time with a header from Matteo Ruggeri’s cross.
The Argentine striker won the penalty with which he marked his moment in the 57th minute, when he clumsily brought down Lassana Coulibaly.
Monday’s shows the strength of Atalanta, which won its first European trophy (its first major honor since 1963) in May.
Since then, Atalanta have suffered serious injuries to Scamacca and star defender Giorgio Scalvini, while an organisation of other players has also been left out.
Meanwhile, Gasperini without Koopmeiners and Ademola Lookman, the hero of the Europa League treble-final, either of whom were eliminated as they tried to leave before the end of the summer move window.
However, before kick-off, Atalanta general manager Luca Percassi left the door open to a reconciliation with the two wanted players, and Paris Saint-Germain would be interested in signing the Nigerian striker LookmanArray.
“Our concept is that, for the first time in our history, not to let go of our wonderful players. . . we can’t wait for this window of movement to close,” Percassi told Sky Sport.
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