DBasia.news – The fate of Martin Skrtel, the former Liverpool defender, at Atalanta only lasted for a short while. Within three weeks, the 34-year-old player returned and strengthened Istanbul Basaksehir.
Skrtel was originally brought in by Atalanta to provide experience at the back line of Gian Piero Gasperini’s club. Understandably, Atalanta is the first time participating in the Champions League for this season and Skrtel is very experienced.
The Slovak player has 103 caps with the national team and has six goals. At Liverpool, Skrtel played for eight years (2008-2016) and played 200 more matches there – including Champions League matches.
“I will try to do my best and give everything when competing, doing 100 percent work and as a defender trying to be aggressive to opponents to stop them scoring goals,” stated Skrtel on the official website of Atalanta after joining the club.
“For a player, the Champions League is a top competition and every player dreams of playing there, especially when you were a kid. I played in the Champions League with Liverpool and I’m thrilled to be in the tournament again with Atalanta.”
Who would have thought in a short period of time Skrtel and Atalanta’s attitude would completely change. Their mutual romance immediately ended with the termination of the contract and Skrtel played back in Turkey.
It is not clear why. However, according to Goal, Skrtel’s relationship worsened with Gasperini. Both of them have disagreed, Gasperini considered Skrtel’s adaptation process to be poor, while Skrtel also did not like the training method of the former Inter Milan coach.
A polemic occurred and ended the player’s contract termination. Skrtel is still on the list of players when Atalanta goes up against SPAL in the first week of Serie A, but in the second match against Torino, Skrtel’s name is no longer in the squad. Instead, Atalanta has a defender who has as much experience from Skrtel, namely Simon Kjaer. The 30-year-old Danish player is the third player from Sevilla to join Atalanta following Luis Muriel and Guilherme Arana.