Gian Piero Gasperini’s Atalanta, Europe’s biggest overachievers, finally got their hands on a richly deserved trophy by dismantling the supposedly unbeatable Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League final on Wednesday night.
No coach in the modern era has achieved bigger things with such a small club for as long as the 66-year-old.
Gian Piero Gasperini had never won a trophy as a coach. Atalanta hadn’t lifted one for 61 years. And they’d only lost another consecutive Coppa Italia final (their third under Gasperini) just last week. So, what chance did they have against Bayer Leverkusen, the newly crowned, treble-chasing Bundesliga champions who hadn’t lost for 361 days? Zero, according to many pundits.
Indeed, some even feared that Gasperini was bracing himself for defeat by arguing that the result of the Europa League final was irrelevant; that Atalanta’s mere presence in Dublin was a kind of victory in and of itself. He was right, too.
Even if they’d lost, Atalanta’s achievements under Gasperini would still have warranted the utmost respect. The thing is, though, had they not completely dismantled Xabi Alonso’s supposedly unstoppable side, they might not have got it.
Because Atalanta have been defying logic for a long time, and only now will they get the credit they so richly deserve after finally getting their hands on the trophy they have well and truly earned.
Annual aim? Beat the drop
When Antonio Percassi acquired Atalanta in 2010, they were a Serie B side beset by problems on and off the field. The first objective was to get back into Italy’s top flight; the second was to stay there. Even now, Percassi says that the aim at the start of every season is to avoid relegation – and it’s easy to understand why.
Atalanta are a provincial Italian club, their ground holds just 15,000 people and their annual revenue, a significant chunk of which is generated by player sales, is usually around €200 million. This is not a club that has featured in the top 20 of Deloitte’s Football Money League yet they have just qualified for the Champions League for the third time in five years, while at the same time reaching their first-ever European final – and then winning it.
Perhaps even more impressively, they have done all of this while playing fantastic football.
‘I like your ideas’
Ahead of Atalanta’s crunch clash with Crotone on October 2, 2016, the newly-appointed Gasperini was stopped by a man outside his home in Bergamo. After four defeats in his first five Serie A games in charge, the Piemontese naturally feared a dressing-down from an upset local.
However, the stranger told him, “I like your ideas. I’m convinced you will do well here.” As Gasperini later admitted in an interview with the Gazzetta dello Sport, “I thought he was making fun of me.”
That Monday, Atalanta claimed a pivotal 3-1 victory at Crotone that Gasperini admits saved his job. It also earned him a free meal. “I met that man again and he invited me to dinner at his house,” Gasperini revealed. “He cooked a great risotto. Today, Paolo is a great friend.”
The continued support of the fans and the Percassi family obviously played a pivotal role in Gasperini’s subsequent success – but so too did his continued faith in himself, and his footballing philosophy.
