Lazar Samardzic has always given the impression in his three years at Udinese that he is an untapped talent. Nice to look at, elegant, talented, yet he has always lacked something to make a round figure. Now that he has moved to’Atalanta is at a crossroads: if not even a “magician” how Gian Piero Gasperinithe Italian coach capable of making the players improve more than any other, is capable of making them make the leap in quality, then the Serbian will remain half-finished.
The signals coming from Bergamo in these first three months of the championship say that Samardizc is less discontinuous compared to that of Udine, but he is not yet a top player. He scored two networks in nine games providing two assists. Only in one did he start (the one Dea lost 4-0 against Inter), he played the entire second half against Monza (his goal made it 2-0) and came on in the 44th minute of the first half in Bologna , scoring the equalizer in the 90th minute in what was the last match in the championship not won by the Bergamo team.
At Udinese it is been a cross and a delight. Cross because there were matches in which he played the role of the great absentee, delight because he didn’t never scored trivial goals. The first he did in La Spezia: play with the sole, fake to kick with the left and goal with the right flat. There were 4 minutes to go and Udinese, then coached by Gotti, took home the three points. The last one, last May 19th, on a penalty in the 104th minute which was worth the draw with Empoli. In the 90th minute it was Samardzic himself who caused the penalty in favor of the Tuscans, who then took the responsibility of kicking a ball that weighed a ton. A question of personality, after all, one that he has never lacked, otherwise you are not capable of scoring goals like the one against Maradona, with a serpentine between three opponents. It was a useless goal for the purposes of the result, but it was talked about for a long time, making it one of the most prized pieces on both the winter and summer transfer markets.
Yes, the market. Samardzic should have left Udinese a year early. It was the summer of 2023 when Gino Pozzo reached an agreement with Inter: the player arrived in Milan and even underwent medical examinations, then everything fell apart because Inter were not willing to pay Mr. Mladen all those commissions that he demanded. The boy didn’t come out of that story very well, he was accused of not having enough attributes to rebel against his father’s demands and decide to go to the strongest club in Italy at the moment, also giving up a few wads of euros. It’s not easy to behave like this when you’re 22-23 years old.
On Sunday 10 November Samardzic will face l‘Udinese. He should start from the bench, but since Gasperini almost always changes his three most offensive players it is easy to imagine him entering the fieldformer Juventus player during the match in progress. For Lazar it will only be the appetizer of the return match in Friuli scheduled for Saturday 11 January. That day will be much more symbolic and therefore felt on his part from an emotional point of view. He didn’t play at Leipzig, in Friuli he had the opportunity to grow and today he is part of a group that plays to win both in Italy and in Europe. This is why he will always have to say thank you to Udinese. —
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