“His head is a jungle” – Corriere.it

The demons are back and this time, it seems, they are likely to be even scarier. After missing the match against Venezia due to disqualification (round of 16 of the Coppa Italia, 12 January), Josip Ilicic he was not called up for either the match against Inter (Sunday, January 16) or for the match on Saturday January 22 with Lazio. An important absence for Atalanta, but that of the Slovenian is once again a malaise that goes beyond the issues of the field. A nightmare already experienced in 2020, during the first devastating wave of Covid, which hit Bergamo in a tragic way. His psychophysical condition is once again delicate: «I don’t like talking about this situation, we are all waiting for it, his situation has ups and downs and at this moment he has had some problems again. But he always has a willingness to leave again. There is a person and the player. At the moment the best thing is to leave him alone and speak little », the story of Gian Piero Gasperini in the post match with Lazio to Dazn’s microphones. He then added to Sky: «We had a relationship with Josip for many years, experiencing many happy situations on the pitch. He is very proactive, he is an absolutely normal person, our head is a jungle. It is not easy for psychologists and psychiatrists and even less so for us. We hope that you will find satisfaction at the camp, he has never been as busy as this year, I have never seen him like this. As a person we expect it all our life ». Finally: «As a player the situation is unpredictable, I certainly cannot give an answer if the doctors don’t know. I am speaking this time and I will not speak of it again, because it is a delicate thing ».

The moment is more tangled than it initially seemed. Fears have awakened. As happened the first time, Atalanta are protecting him even now. In 2020 he had decided to wait for the return to the field of a player who, right at the gates of the Covid emergency, had marked a historic quatern in Champions League (in the round of 16 against Valencia in February) and which he considered key to his starting line-up. To tell the truth, that player who enchanted at Mestalla has never returned, but some glimpses of good football had shown him between the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 against Roma and Milan. So much so that the club in via Aldo Rossi also thought of him last summer for the post Calhanoglu, in the meantime went to Inter on a free transfer. These ailments have perhaps prevented him from making the big leap into a big one. But for the Goddess the player’s man counts first. And it awaits him like that 17 October 2020 when Ilicic reviewed the field with Napoli. When he returned to live by defeating the first demons.