Atalanta are one of the success stories of the last decade. Gatecrashing Italy’s elite and refusing to go away, rewarded for their novel approach of keeping faith in the manager, then rebuilding the team with smart recruitment and forging on to win their first trophy since the 1960s.
Liverpool will not need a reminder, having been swept aside in the Europa League quarter-finals. Once in the final, the club from Bergamo became the only side to beat Bayer Leverkusen last season. On Thursday, they begin their fourth Champions League campaign in six years against Arsenal.
The secret? ‘A small club run well from the top, simple and joined-up,’ according to Lee Congerton, who spent nearly two years leading Atalanta’s recruitment with chief executive Luca Percassi before leaving for Al Ahli in Saudi Arabia in March.
American investment from the co-owner of Boston Celtics has not changed the maxim. They want to challenge for the top six and try to win a cup, while looking to make a profit from a prosperous academy and their ability to move swiftly in the market.
We have seen the advantage of slick, streamlined clubs on these shores. Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth have bought and sold cleverly, unencumbered by expectations to make huge signings and smash the wage structure to keep big stars and satisfy ambition. Atalanta fit the same bill. Manager Gian Piero Gasperini’s involvement in transfers is minimal but his eight years in office means they know what he likes and trust him to improve players if they deliver talent with scope for development.
Gian Piero Gasperini has overseen a period of success with Italian side Atalanta
The Italian boss led Atalanta to a thrilling Europa League win over Bayer Leverkusen
Gasperini has been in the Atalanta dugout for eight years, helping to gatecrash Italy's elite
Rasmus Hojlund came and went inside a year from Sturm Graz to Manchester United for a tidy profit of £57million. Ademola Lookman looked lost when he arrived from Leipzig. It didn’t work out for him at Everton or in Germany, and loans at Fulham and Leicester came to nothing.
Two years under Gasperini and he is on the shortlist for the Ballon d’Or, having dazzled in the Africa Cup of Nations with Nigeria and scored a hat-trick in that 3-0 win against Leverkusen in the Europa League final.
‘He was always a top talent,’ says Congerton, who was behind his move to Atalanta. ‘At the time he didn’t have the body to play in the Premier League, but I saw in my time at Leicester what a dedicated professional he was. He has blossomed in Italy.’
This year Atalanta signed Ben Godfrey, another Everton cast-off. Godfrey started at York and arrived at Goodison via Norwich. He won England caps in the warm-up friendlies for the Euros in 2021 but progress was halted by a broken leg in August 2022.
Godfrey made his debut in the UEFA Super Cup against Real Madrid and has a chance to be the latest player reinvigorated by Gasperini, a manager who likes a back three and players with pace and energy to press high.
England’s interim boss Lee Carsley will watch with interest. Steve McClaren might keep an eye on it, too, because Godfrey remains eligible for Jamaica through grandparents. Lookman used his Atalanta rebirth to flourish with Nigeria. Carsley is not awash with options in central defence and market trends are squeezing English players out of the Premier League.
There is a counterbalance, however, because more are moving overseas, in demand among the smart traders like Atalanta scouring for bargains coming out of England from clubs selling to balance the books. Elite opportunities are closing at home but opening abroad for those with a taste for adventure.
Godfrey is one of 14 English players registered to play in the Champions League this season for teams outside the UK. Last season, eight appeared for non-UK teams. Five years ago, the number was two.
Ben Godfrey secured an unlikely move from the struggling Everton to Atalanta in the summer
Ademola Lookman is another who has prospered under Gasperini's guidance at Atalanta
Interim Three Lions boss Carsley has a lot of ground to cover to watch the abroad English stars
In Munich, Harry Kane and Eric Dier. In Madrid, Jude Bellingham and Conor Gallagher. In Milan, where they adore the Chelsea stamp, Fikayo Tomori, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Tammy Abraham.
In Lille, there is Angel Gomes, handed an England debut this month by Carsley, who knows him well from their time together in the Under 21s, and there are others. Marcus Edwards is at Sporting, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens is at Borussia Dortmund, Bobby Clark is at Salzburg and Joel Ndala is on loan from Manchester City at PSV.
Sam Iling-Junior is on loan from Aston Villa at Bologna, the latest club trying to disrupt Italian football, seeking to mimic Atalanta’s success by luring Giovanni Sartori, technical director of eight years out of Bergamo in 2022.
Bologna will make their Champions League debut against Shakhtar Donetsk on Wednesday. It is not only the format changing in European football.
Five things I learned this week
1 - Of course, not every move abroad comes with a happy ending. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is in the cold at Besiktas with two more years on his contract. Giovanni van Bronckhorst, his sixth different boss inside a year, does not want him and has omitted him from his Europa League squad. Oxlade-Chamberlain, according to reports in Turkey, demanded the £5million owed on his contract to go, which wrecked the chances of a summer exit.
2 - Tighter rules on keepers messing with the minds of penalty-takers mean players are getting more creative. Two-and-a-half minutes slipped by at Southampton between Diogo Dalot’s foul on Tyler Dibling and Andre Onana’s save from Cameron Archer. The offence was clear, one replay confirmed it was in the box and yet there were protests from a series of Manchester United players. Stuart Attwell fussed, issuing instructions to anyone who would listen. Even when it settled down, the referee dithered more. No wonder Archer got uptight.
3 - He’s not everybody’s cup of tea but there was something to enjoy in Anthony Taylor’s decision to handle Bournemouth v Chelsea in the style of the Michael Douglas character in ’90s cult classic Falling Down. Pushed to the edge by social and behavioural flaws now passing for normality among young millionaires who refuse to respect his authority, he seethed quietly while toting 14 yellow cards in a game without a bad tackle.
Southampton's Cameron Archer had to wait two-and-a-half minutes before he took his penalty
Anthony Taylor dished out 14 yellow cards to players in Chelsea's game against Bournemouth
4 - Arsene Wenger would often talk about ‘efficiency’ when assessing a forward’s attributes at Arsenal, although there was nobody in those days stacking up the numbers quite like Erling Haaland. He has had 85 touches across four games this season, registering 20 shots, with 14 of them on target and nine goals. His second against Brentford proved what Sam Allardyce once told me, that Manchester City are the best long-ball team in the country.
5 - The FA Cup is simmering away and Torquay have crashed to a new low with a 3-0 defeat at Bishops Cleeve. That is not a craft ale but a Southern League outfit from a village near Cheltenham, run by the father-in-law of Lee Sharpe, twice an FA Cup winner and whose career started at Torquay.