Atalanta Bergamo have been making positive headlines for many years. This season is no different. Could they even achieve something big in the end?
You don’t have to look far to find the man largely responsible for Atalanta Bergamo’s success.
Gianpiero Gasperini, in charge of La Dea since 2016, has given this club a new DNA. And a clear plan that works independently of players. The departures of greats like Alejandro “Papu” Gomez, who lost an argument with his coach in 2021 and had to leave (now without a club), or Teun Koopmeiners, who lost to Juventus Turin in the summer after a strike, never stop the development process.
Rather, year after year, the Bergamasque team wraps itself in a new cocoon during the preparation phase, only to emerge at the start of the season as an even more beautiful, faster, and more agile butterfly.
34 goals in 13 games
Atalanta has already achieved so much: qualifying for the Champions League for the first time and almost reaching the semi-finals of the 2019/20 Corona Tournament, impressing the Serie A competition with goal-scoring football for years, and this summer defeating Bayer 04 Leverkusen, which had previously been completely undefeated, for the first time. And so they were crowned winners of the Europa League (3:0).
And now? The 3-1 win in Parma on Saturday evening at the start of Matchday 13 saw the Lombards leapfrog to first place, at least temporarily. And that ahead of actually superior clubs such as champions Inter (5-0 at Hellas), the resurrected Napoli or record champions Juventus (only 0-0 at AC Milan).
But that’s not all: with 28 points from 34:16 goals, which also represents the most dangerous attack in the Serie A, Atalanta Bergamo has made the most successful start to the season in the club’s history. Another milestone for Gasperini and his coaching career full of milestones.
Comparisons? Gasperini is really struggling
Is this the ultimate milestone, the first Scudetto for this club? Why not? Gasperini doesn’t want to talk about it in terms of an objective, but he said after the success in Parma – the seventh league win in a row – in front of the DAZN microphone: “We have to concentrate on winning every game – we don’t really think about the rest. That was also the case in the Europa League. We didn’t think we were going to win at the beginning, but as time went on we had chances.” In short, ‘We don’t want to let our guard down now.’ Then we’ll see what happens at the end of what is still a long season.
One thing is clear for Gasperini: he does not want to compare his current team with goalscoring guarantees like Ademola Lookman (seven goals in ten Serie A appearances) and, in particular, summer signing Mateo Retegui, who already has 12 goals in 13 appearances and leads the scoring charts, with his former teams. “I’m not willing to make these comparisons – maybe towards the end of my career,” said the gentleman, who had also openly flirted with the idea of taking on a role in Naples after winning the Europa League. “I will always be grateful to have coached them all. They have given me so much and I really find it difficult to put them in any kind of hierarchical order.” And he has had many of them: since his first day in Bergamo in 2016, only one player is still there – veteran Rafael Toloi.
