Atalanta won the Europa League a victory that allows the team from Bergamo to go into the Champions League 2024-2025 as the top seed. But how did the team from Bergamo win and why Atalanta calcio is a perfect project.
The Atalanta fans, who invaded the central squares of Bergamo by the tens of thousands while waiting for the team to return from Dublin late in the evening, were regularly at work this morning. Just as they will be at the stadium for the last two matches that the neroblu have yet to play in Serie A.
The home match against Torino scheduled for next Sunday and the replay of the match against Fiorentina not played due to the dramatic death of Joe Barone. Two matches and six points at stake that could even give Dea a third place finish in Serie A. Huge, even if all the Italian clubs are asking Atalanta to desist: and leave Roma a fifth place that would bring an extraordinary six-team Italian pack in the next Champions League.
How Atalanta calcio won the Europa League
Such a great, clear-cut and, according to many, absolutely unpredictable success against Bayer Leverkusen – unbeaten since the start of the season in Germany and abroad – has many reasons that come from afar.
Atalanta’s conquest of the Europa League is the result of an evolution that began many years ago with Bortolotti’s presidency and later with Ivan Ruggeri. Percassi, a wealthy building entrepreneur who decided to return to investing in football and who has enormous economic potential, simply embarked on a virtuous path in which spending was never the most important thing.
Entrusted for years to Giampiero Gasperini, a competent and pragmatic coach, Atalanta football has invested the right amount, earning a fortune with the sale of players that the coach has been able to mould and resell, creating stellar capital gains. In the meantime, Percassi has built a modern facility at Atleti Azzurri d’Italia, the oldest stadium in Serie A, and a fabulous headquarters in Zingonia where the youth teams and first team live in a very familiar environment, far from the hysteria of big cities.
Defeated in the Coppa Italia final by Juventus, Atalanta accomplished their masterpiece in the Europa League by winning their first international trophy, their first cup after many years of waiting and several wasted chances. Eliminating one after the other far more experienced teams such as Liverpool, Olympique Marseille, Sporting Lisbon and then humiliating Bayer Leverkusen in an extraordinary final.
Why Atalanta Bergamasca calcio is called Dea and what is its future
The Goddess: Atalanta was the daughter of Iaso, king of Arcadia, a mythological icon who became legendary for her beauty and grace in running and hunting. Atalanta was not a goddess, but a normal – beautiful – girl raised in the mountains and forests by hunters because her father, who wanted a boy, abandoned her to her fate.
Atalanta never wanted a husband. Whoever wanted her had to beat her in a race, losing her life after losing the challenge. In spite of herself, she fell in love with Hippomenes, who beat her after receiving some help from Aphrodite.
An amusing story that the team made their own. Realised as a reality of an industrial province, where one gets up early, works hard and builds the future with one’s own hands, Atalanta is now ready to compete at the highest level with the superpowers of Italian and European football with concreteness and an old-fashioned, trustworthy common sense.
Almost all of Atalanta’s most impressive players, starting with Lookman – three goals in the Dublin final – and continuing with Ruggieri, Koopmeiners, Ederson and Scamacca, are in the sights of big clubs. Ready to spend tens of millions to bring them to their court. De Ketelaere, bought and discarded by AC Milan, could be redeemed by Atalanta who – above all – are trying to retain Gasperini, tempted by several important offers, above all that of Napoli.
Who is Stefano Pagliuca
Percassi, president of Atalanta calcio, has in recent years found a fabulous investor, the American entrepreneur Stephen Pagliuca, owner of the Boston Celtics, capable of acquiring the majority of the club by investing a lot of money. Pagliuca told Percassi ‘I love football and I don’t know how to manage it. Teach me and entertain me’.
Pagliuca was in the front row to buy Liverpool. Then he fell in love with Atalanta and placed his 155 billion in Bergamo, making this perfect project built on stone a treasure trove of gold and diamonds.
Atalanta calcio regardless of its future is a real example to imitate.
To be read How Inter won the Serie A championship
