Enrico Gasparotto couldn’t enjoy his honeymoon, as he was so worried about finding a team for 2015. But when things seemed at their bleakest, Wanty-Groupe Gobert offered him a deal to save his career.

"The honeymoon wasn't as relaxing as it should have been because I hadn't had any response from anybody before I left," Gasparotto told Cyclingnews. "When I came home, I was 99 percent certain that instead of celebrating an end of year party with my fan club I'd be marking the end of my career."

Earlier in the season, Gasparotto had been in talks with Paolo Bettini over a ride at the Alonso team, but the 32 year old realized pretty quickly that the team wouldn’t come to fruition. Once he did start making moves to find a ride, he realized very quickly that he may have been too late for a WorldTour ride.

"I only started reaching out to make real contacts after the GP Plouay, because I only got the definitive ‘'no' from [Alexandre] Vinokourov there," he said. "If Astana really didn't want to not renew my contract, they could have told me a lot sooner, because the WorldTour teams all negotiate their transfer campaigns very early. Even when they close deals in September, there's usually been contact from March, April or May."

While he holds no anger against Astana for not renewing with him despite his strong Ardennes campaign and his status as a winner of Amstel Gold in 2012, he was left bitter by the fact that so many teams rejected him.

"I always thought that if I was in difficulty, Vino would have kept a place for me. But that was probably my own error," he said. "What I didn't really expect was to have general 'no' from so many teams. That left a bad feeling alright."

One of the reasons he feels he was not offered a ride by many teams was due to the testimony Leonardo Bertagnolli gave to the Padova doping enquiry in 2011, where he cited that Gasparotto was one of a few Liquigas riders who were coached by Michele Ferrari. This reached the public in Autumn 2012, not long after Gasparotto took his biggest ever win at Amstel, and while he produced a document stating he was not involved in the enquiry, people are obviously suspicious.

"I believe that many people used that thing to say that they wouldn't take me," he said. "But I think the doubts are removed by talking about it. So, if somebody is truly interested in Enrico Gasparotto, we'll talk about it and I'll them how things how are. It's something from years ago – I won before, I won after and while I haven't won in the past two years, I had a very good season last year and only slightly less good this time around."

"If somebody is interested in Enrico Gasparotto, they can go and look into it fully like Wanty did, and any doubts can be removed by talking to the doctors and all the people who worked with me in various teams over the years."

Gasparotto stood up for his Astana team in relation to the recent doping tests of the Continental team’s riders, saying in his five years at the team, he never once met a rider from that team apart from stagiaires.

"In all my time at Astana, I never once met a rider from Astana Continental at any training camp. They were two completely separate entities but of course for the image of Kazakhstan it's not a good thing because they're all Kazakh riders," he said. "Obviously Vino, as manager, is an important figurehead, and I imagine he's had to offer explanations to the UCI about it."

But he did know Maxim Iglinskiy, who was the 2012 Liege-Bastogne-Liege winner, a ace Gasparotto, his teammate, finished third in that year. Both regularly attended training camps together.

"The only thing I can say is that I can't understand it," Gasparotto said. "It was always just a professional relationship with him. I got on fine with the Kazakhs but it wasn't a close rapport, it's not easy to have a close rapport because of the cultural differences. So I never spoke with him outside of cycling, and I just can't get my head around something like that."

Like at Astana, Gasparotto is moving to a team with a strong Italian core, which should help him to settle quickly. He joins riders like Danilo Napolitano, Marco Marcato, Mirko Selvaggi and Simone Antonini.

"I had positive feedback from the Italians who are already there, and everybody told me that it's more of a familiar atmosphere than at Astana," he said. "I'm happy that after ten years as a professional I'm ending up in a Belgian team, in a country where the one-day race is the most important thing. It might be the ideal team for me at this point."

He will focus on the Ardennes Classics again, but he says he would love to make a return to the Tour of Flanders if he is allowed to ride, especially since the new Amstel Gold course suits him even less than the 2012 course did.

"I'd love to do Flanders again, so I can live all of the emotions that riding in a Belgian team creates in that race," he said, although he acknowledged that he may again be compelled to keep his powder dry for the Ardennes. "They're the races where I've always gone well and I love them, so I'll certainly take responsibility there. In those races, I'd like to have the team for me because I'm convinced I can get a result."

"I was first [2012] and third [2010] on the old course but this suits me a lot less," the Italian said of the new Amstel Gold course, even if he has become a specialist at the race, finishing ninth and eighth in the last two editions on the new course.

Gasparotto says his big goal is to enjoy himself in 2015 and regain his old form rather than secure an immediate return to the WorldTour for 2016.

"It's not so much about regaining a WorldTour place because that's no guarantee of having a wage commensurate with your value as an athlete," he said. "The desire is more for me to return to my correct level."