After 18 rounds, Atalanta Bergamo are only fifth in Serie A and not sure of a European place, but they have just crushed Salernitana 8-2 and showed us the future top scorer in Il Calcio: Rasmus Højlund.
The Italian journalists looked at the scoreboard and rubbed their eyes. Then they consulted the stats. Then they noted that never in its rich history has Atalanta scored eight goals in a Serie A match. They started looking for an explanation and they stopped at Rasmus Højlund and gived him a super-name: The Hurricane. So who is The Hurricane?
The Austrian connection
A Danish teenager who is already being compared to Norway’s Erling Haaland, City’s top player and one of the best young players in Europe, Rasmus Højlund also hails from Austria, which has become one of the great talent providers for the big leagues.
Atalanta paid less than twenty million euros to Sturm Graz for Højlund. In the match vs Salernitana, Højlund did it all: scored, took penalties, delighted the stands, who ignored the fact that he was in Lombardia and started acting like they were in Mexico, came out of the field in the applause of the whole stadium and made coach Gian Piero Gasperini smile broadly. La Dea is only fifth in the Serie A rankings, but at the same time they have the best form of all the teams fighting for the top-four UCL places.
The power of revenge
The Serie A season so far has offered some quite remarkable things. First among them: Napoli has distanced itself in the top of the table and is closer than ever to a new title, as we already announced here in an article last autumn. It would be the first since Diego Armando Maradona. It’s unlikely Napoli can be stopped. The way they crushed Juventus wasn’t a simple victory, albeit an outright one. It was revenge. The Neapolitans are propelled by all the energy of the need for revenge gathered over the last thirty years. One can confidently bet on the strength of a revenge, as we know or should know from the Count of Monte Cristo novel.
Allegri has tried to win all of Juve’s games with 1-0, and this strategy has proved bankrupt, as has Kean’s in the bianconeri attack.
AC Milan and Inter Milan, the previous champions of the 2021-2022 and 2020-2021 seasons, are in free fall. When you can’t beat Lecce (AC Milan) and beat Verona (Inter) by just a boot toe, it is clear that the years of the fat cows are over. AC Milan are 2nd and Inter are 4th, but whichever of them plays Napoli tomorrow would probably meet the same fate as Juventus.
Napoli found its rhythm, found its ease, as passion was never lacking. But the goalscorer of the coming years comes from Bergamo. Don’t forget his name: Rasmund Højlund. You can bet on that.
