The assist so nice he did it twice.
Josip Iličić, with a magic repetition—two minutes apart.
In the 16th minute, the first.
Spinning a Zidane-like turn to open up Fiorentina, then taking it coast to coast, until at the last moment, the through ball laid forward to Papu Gómez.
1-0, Atalanta ahead.
Lightning counter-attack initiated by Ilicic (had to be) and finished off beautifully by Gomez. Then he sets up Pasalic. A show of what Josip can do – even if he didn’t do it often enough in Florence…
— Giancarlo Rinaldi (@ginkers) February 27, 2019
And then in the 18th minute, he’s done it again.
Iličić taking it straight at the fullback, dancing around the ball, waiting, waiting, then the quick roll back with his left foot, in traffic…
And a perfect leading cross to Mario Pašalić.
How was Ilicic allowed to run through the defence twice like that? HOW???
— Chloe Beresford (@ChloeJBeresford) February 27, 2019
2-0, Atalanta. In this first leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final.
With Iličić going god-mode against his former team.
It’s very hard to choose tonight between the world class number 10 on the pitch:
– Messi in Real Madrid-Barcelona
– Hazard in Chelsea-Tottenham
– Ilicic in Fiorentina-Atalanta— Tancredi Palmeri (@tancredipalmeri) February 27, 2019
In the end, they figured him out—with the game ending 3-3.
But around the whole world of soccer, from the European leagues to the World Cup, the cup tournaments, the friendlies, the Champions League…
We may have just seen the best, closest-together pair of assists all year.
From the Illmatic… Josip Iličić.
