Perceived turn over. Ancelotti and Gasperini, never an equal formation: one tried, the other praised

It is the sum that makes the total, said Totò. In football, instead, it is the result that opinion makes. It is the result – paired with the expectation of the result – that establishes whether the choices of a coach or a player's plays have been right or not. Even if the moves are overlapping. Take Ancelotti and Gasperini. The two coaches have a characteristic that unites them, so far neither of them has deployed the same formation. In twelve games – nine of the championship and three of Champions – Atalanta and Napoli took to the field with twelve different formations. Ancelotti and Gasperini share the same philosophy. And yet, the accompanying wind is profoundly different.

Gasperini and his Atalanta are preceded and surrounded by a cloud of enthusiasm, from these ohhhhh of wonder and enthusiasm. No one would dream of challenging the Piedmontese coach with an exasperated rotation of his men. His Atalanta is confirming the excellent championship of the previous season, he is third in the championship (final position in May 2019). It matters little that in the Champions League he lost three games out of three against Dinamo Zagreb, Shakhtar Donetsk and Manchester City. It is the Italian Leicester and in the Italian Leicester there is certainly no question of constantly varying the formation.

In the case of Atalanta, instead, it is said that the mechanisms are synchronized to such an extent that the coach can systematically vary men without affecting the gear. In Bergamo there are no masses of fans who accuse Gasperini of rotating men because President Percassi ordered this. Formations set at the table weeks before matches based on a table of timing established by the company. In Bergamo, anyone who said something similar would obviously be subjected to immediate T.S.O (mandatory medical treatment); in Naples it may also end up that you are awarded honorary citizenship.

At Naples, we said. Even Carlo Ancelotti has always changed his formation. It has deployed twelve different formations in twelve games. In the championship he is fourth, three points behind Atalanta and six by the Juventus leaders. And in the Champions League he leads the group with two wins (against Liverpool and Strasbourg) and a draw (in Genk). It goes without saying that the two victories have gone almost unnoticed and a process of days has been set up in Genk. The same that is going in these hours after the draw of Napoli in Ferrara, four days after the extraordinary performance in the Champions League. Because Europe in Italy does not count. Not only in Naples. Napoli has aged (Crosetti dixit), Atalanta looks like a young girl.

In Ferrara, Ancelotti deployed an obligatory defense, he replaced Meret with Ospina (author of an amazing parade), and between midfield and attack he deployed all holders except Elmas: Allan, Zielinski, Insigne, Milik, Mertens. It matters little, in Naples fans and local media began to issue lines similar to those of monkeys in 2001 A Space Odyssey. It is worth remembering that the same people, the same journalists (in short, media people) who dispute what they consider an excess of turnover, complain about the smallness of the rose in midfield. And here we return to T.S.O.

Yet the turn over of Ancelotti is the same as the turn over practiced by Gasperini. Indeed, that of Ancelotti is more tenuous. Gasperini's is more systematic, we would dare to say scientific. Just compare the data provided by the Lega Serie A with regard to the minutes played in the league.

Napoli has ten players with more than 500 minutes played: the first is Zielinski (807), the tenth is Manolas (548). The eleventh is Ghoulam with 332 minutes played. There are only thirteen players in the Napoli league who have played for over 300 minutes in the league: the last two are Maksimovic and Mario Rui.

Gasperini's Atalanta, on the other hand, has eleven players with more than 500 minutes played. The first is Gollini with 771. The eleventh is Freuler with 539. But the Bergamo footballers who have exceeded 300 minutes of play in the league are sixteen (three more than in Napoli). The last one is Muriel with 363 minutes played. Atalanta has five players in the range between 300 and 500 minutes played. Napoli has three, all three with just over 300 minutes played.

What does it mean? It means that in the championship Gasperini has turned men more than Ancelotti did. But no one attributes the excessive turn over to Gasperini. The Bergamo season is considered positive despite the three defeats out of three in a Champions League group that was probably the most affordable.

Ancelotti's Napoli, who is fourth in the league, and is playing an excellent Champions League, is blamed in a perennial trial that is staged every day in Naples. A process that fundamentally has the objective of demonstrating that the strong and trained coach was another, the one who today sits on the bench of the former hated Juventus who, since this summer, boasts many supporters in the shadow of Vesuvius: the neojuventini.