Atalanta should no longer be considered the Cinderella of Italian football because they have all the characteristics of a top club.
They have a very strong and competent owner, Antonio Percassi, who has strengthened the ownership by selling part of the shares abroad, and has an exceptional coach like Gian Piero Gasperini, a kind of ‘Good Dictator’ who quarrels with the players when he realises that they are dropped their levels of commitment and sacrifice for the team.
Atalanta are a team made up of many different players with Gasperini, the right man in the right place. Without him, the team would have lost intensity, failing to maintain such high standards of performance during their recent history in Serie A and in the Champions League.
Atalanta have made a superb start to the season and are second in the Serie A table
Gasperini seems like a magician capable of always making the right choices in the best moments without ever making the club spend too much money – a feature much appreciated especially in Italy.
Like Napoli, Atalanta are also unbeaten and share this statistical record with a team that will probably fight to the end for the Serie A title. The management costs of the club are not high and this allows them to manage the market.
The main characteristic of the Bergamo team is to let players who want to experience new career opportunities, or who have problems with coach Gasperini, to leave without any hesitation.
Nobody thought that the club could get rid of top players like Pierluigi Gollini, ‘Papu’ Gomez, Robin Gosens and Josip Ilicic without problems, yet Gasperini has shown that he can do without all the players while maintaining the quality of Atalanta. No- one is indispensable for Gasperini, everyone is useful but the coach’s football philosophy will not change for any player.
His new Atalanta is less spectacular and more solid, and despite the many starts in all departments it is the solidness of the defence that amazes all the Bergamo fans.
In a few months, many protagonists of their best moments in recent years have left Bergamo but the team has been able to regenerate on the market and through its own youth sector.
Atalanta boss Gian Piero Gasperini is the right manager at the right time for the Italian side
GASPERINI’S GOLD MINE: SCALVINI, OKOLI AND DEMIRAL
Giorgio Scalvini, Merih Demiral and Caleb Okoli are three stars who can dominate Serie A in the present and in the future.
The trio of youngsters are the best discovery of Gasperini and a key part of the manager’s rebuilding job.
Together, they do not exceed a combined 63 years of age and represent the great work of the young training centre of Zingonia, where several top players in the past were born before going on to win national and international trophies.
Giorgio Scalvini (left) is among the youngsters to have excelled at Atalanta so far this season
According to ‘Repubblica’, Scalvini, the Italian defender born in 2003, ended up in the notes of Roma, Lazio, Juventus and Inter but also of the top big European clubs.
With 21-year-old defender Okoli, on the other hand, the pressure of Milan is strong. The club are looking for another young defender, after Fikayo Tomori and Pierre Kalulu, to send Kjaer into retirement.
Inter’s interest is always active on Demiral, especially if Giuseppe Marotta manages to sell at least one defender between Milan Skriniar and Stefan De Vrij in the summer. Demiral, Okoli and Scalvini today represent the gold mine of Atalanta which every year seems to produce four to five players of great physique and quality ready to play in Serie A.
The three players’ total value today is around €110million (£96m) and if Atalanta were to manage to return to Europe it would be even higher. There is a lot of enthusiasm in Bergamo and the city is following with interest the events of the team that continues to win and achieve extraordinary sporting results.
Caleb Okoli (right) has also impressed and has attracted the attention of the likes of AC Milan
THE LOOKMAN SHOW
In the Premier League at Everton, Fulham and Leicester they did not believe in him but in Italy Lookman has proved to be a modern and effective winger who scores and provides many assists.
He has already erased Ilicic’s memory and consigned Jeremie Boga, the French winger who was supposed to replace Gomez after his departure for Sevilla, to the bench.
Today Atalanta can not do without the Nigerian winger, who wants to look like Tijani Babangida, the Ajax star who ran like a horse and stung the opponent’s defences like the tip of a spear.
Ademola Lookman is enjoying his football again and has become a key member of the side
The abbreviation of Ademola for Atalanta fans is ‘Mola’, and in the Orobic city there is a dialect expression that reads ‘Mola Mia’ which means never give up.
Against Sassuolo. Lookman was substituted in the 68th minute after making the defenders of the Emilian team feel like it’s Halloween night days in advance. His way of running creates enthusiasm among the fans who continue to be amazed at how a player with these qualities has always struggled to find space in the top clubs.
The forward has become an untouchable on the Gasperini chessboard who today, in the absence of Duvan Zapata, continues to bet on his goals to remain at the top of the table.
Unlike the Portuguese No 17 of Milan, Lookman knows how to play in several roles, as a high forward, as a second striker but also as a first striker.
He is an extraordinary player who quickly changes the way he plays without ever lowering his performance. Lookman immediately established an excellent feeling with the city of Bergamo and did not suffer setbacks in living football at a crazy speed like that conceived by Gasperini, who today cannot do without him in training.
The Nigerian winger has four goals and three assists in 10 league games so far this season
