18 year old refugee Mustapha cisse was the hero for Atalanta as he scored In the 82thminute to give his side all three points against Bologna.
Atalanta has been hit hard by injuries in recent times and with Zapata,Josip ilicic Malinovski,Zappacosta and Jeremie Boga all out on the treatment table,the club gave a debut to 18year old Mustapha cisse who was recently signed from Rasinacita Refugees an amateur team in Copertino,near Lecce in late February.
Mustapha cisse journey began with ASD Rasinacita Refugees,a club consisting of entirely if foreign players and coaches seeking asylum.The club plays in the second Categoria.The Italian eighth tier division consist of nearly 3000 clubs spread across 296 divisions.
“The team was born with the intention of giving normalcy to these boys” said ASD Rasinacita coach Niang Baye Hassane, a Senegalese native ” I gave them some advice, I transferred a tip to them ; “You have to take everything seriously.we participate we are Competitive and we are going to win,if we do not win it is the same,but the intention his to bring a useful result home with the utmost respect for the rules and with discipline”.
He made his debut for the under 19s a week ago and he bag a brace for the Atalanta U19 versus Ac Milan U19 and further added two more to take his tally of three goals in four primavera. He was largely impressive for a player that just started playing amateur football in 2021.
The youngster was thrown straight into the thick of the action as he replaced Luis Muriel who ran himself to the ground against bologna.The match had a draw written all over it, but Mustapha cisse had other ideas as he came up trumps scoring the match winner on the 82th minutes with a clinical finish to keep his team’s hope of playing champions league football next season.
Just a few weeks ago,Cisse was a Guinean refugee with no family toiling the lowest reaches of Italian football.Now he’s scoring match winner for one of the most exciting Italian footballing sides.
Gasperini took a gamble on the Guinea born player as he was signed with Atalanta using one of their extra-EU spots to sign the player.
He adjusted to his surroundings quickly and La Dea’s prolific youth systems might have unheated another gem.Top assistant Tullio Gritti weighed in after the win.”He’s been practicing with us for a while.Still he would not have been called up if we had our regular strikers.This proves that negative situations can produce something good if you have the right amount of courage.it was a stroke of genius from Gasperini.”
Mustapha cisse and the Bergamo faithful will hope his Cinderella story continues and he goes on to show his full potential on the biggest of stages.
