Hellas Verona v Atalanta, the brainteaser

After kicking off the month with a double header at the Gewiss Stadium, Atalanta will face the first of two consecutive away games in this busy early February. The green turf of the Marcantonio Bentegodi will set the stage for the first of two away trips, with a journey to Bruges waiting in the wings in view of the Round 1 of a black-and-blue mirror play-off knockout stage. With the first half of the month wrapping up with a home match against Cagliari, the match count will total a whopping five games in just 15 days.One game at a time, and now it’s time to hit the road for the Verona outing: here’s the classic pre-match quiz!

Is Iličić the only Nerazzurro to have pulled off a hat-trick in Verona?

Last, but by no means the only one to have pulled off such a notable feat, Iličić bent the game to his whim and put on a monster performance to seal our 5-0 victory back in the 2017/18 season. With the match unfoling under the banner of the Slovenian number 72, Atalanta claimed thier biggest win along the Adige River. The main man in the footballing "Arena of Verona", Josip stole the spotlight on that Sunday afternoon of March 18th with a real "one-man-show," first stepping up to convert a penalty in stoppage time at the end of the first half, and then landing a double left-footed uppercut in the second half.

However, as mentioned at the outset, the magician from Prijedor wasn’t the first to break into the Orobic “hat-trick club” section of Verona. Before him, there was Aldo Cantarutti, Atalanta's man of the hour in the 1985/86 Serie A MD26.

When did Atalanta bag their first Serie A win at the Bentegodi?

Out of 43 meetings played so far in Verona across all competitions, Atalanta has walked away with 17 victories (while the home side has claimed 12, with 14 draws rounding out the tally). Were we to narrow the scope to the Serie A alone, the number of encounters dwindles to 24, with 9 wins for Atalanta (still ahead of the Gialloblù, who sit at 8).

While Atalanta's very first victory in Verona, at the "old" Bentegodi no less (a 0-3 win for the Orobic side), dates back to the 1932/33 season, it's also true that this was achieved in the second division.

In a similar fashion, although the first win at the "new" Bentegodi (opened in 1963) came in the 1965/66 campaign, it was in the Coppa Italia, specifically in the first round of the national competition. The final score? A 0-1 victory with Savoldi finding the net in the dying minutes.

To find the correct answer, we have to go back (or rather, fast forward in this case) to the 1971/72 season MD9 when Giulio Corsini's Atalanta imposed themselves 1-2 over Pozzan's Verona thanks to a brace from Leonardi, who netted his first two goals of the season to give the Orobic outfit the full 2 points. As fate would have it, this same result occurred again exactly 50 years later (on December 12, 2021) and almost at the same hour…

How many matches did Zanetti play with Atalanta?

In addition to Hien and Sulemana (who racked up 42 and 16 appearances with Hellas Verona respectively), the current Scaligier coach can also flaunt a past as an ex-player, in his case as a Nerazzurro... Upon arriving in Bergamo during the winter transfer window of the 2009/10 season from Torino, the former midfielder featured in two matches under then-coach Mutti, totaling 100 minutes in the away games against Genoa and Sampdoria.