Our Champions League campaign kicks off with a trip to Bergamo to face last season’s Europa League winners Atalanta, who have established themselves as one of Italy’s best clubs over the past few years.
They’ve become a regular fixture in European competition and in the top four of Serie A, but how much do you know about I Nerazzurri? Here’s a guide to our matchday one opponents:
The history
The club was founded in 1907 by students and named after a female athlete in Greek mythology. They would merge with another club from the city Bergamasca in 1920 and adopted their blue and black striped shirts. The first of a joint-record six Serie B titles was claimed in 1928, and they reached the top-flight for the first time nine years later.
They would remain there for the majority of the next four decades, and their first major honour would arrive in the form of the 1963 Coppa Italia. However the 1970s and 1980s would see them struggle, and even briefly dropped into Serie C in 1981. They reached the semi-finals of the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1988 as a second-tier club, a record run that still stands today, and soon established themselves in the upper half of Serie A.
The first 15 years of the 21st century saw them yo-yo between the top two tiers, but in 2016 Gian Piero Gasperini was appointed manager. He took them to fourth and successive third-place finishes in his first four seasons, and clinched their first trophy in 61 years when they lifted the Europa League last term.
The stadium
Atalanta have been playing matches on the site of their Gewiss Stadium home since 1928. It gradually increased in size over the decades, reaching a record attendance of 43,000 in 1984.
Major improvements over the course of the last decade have seen the facilities modernised to meet UEFA standards, and the final stand of their revamp has been completed to take the capacity to around 25,000. It has hosted six Italian international matches in its history, the last of which was back in 2020 when Jorginho featured in a 1-1 Nations League draw with the Netherlands.
The manager
66-year-old Gasperini has transformed the fortunes of Atalanta since his appointment eight years ago, and has been awarded honorary citizenship of Bergamo as a result.
A former midfielder who made over 450 appearances across the top three divisions in Italy, he starting his coaching career at Juventus’ youth academy before stepping into management with Crotone and later Genoa, whom he led to a fifth-place finish in Serie A in 2009.
Short stints at Inter Milan and Palermo twice were followed by a less successful return to Genoa, before he pitched up at Atalanta. He has now qualified them for the Champions League on four occasions, saw them score 98 Serie A goals in 2019/20 on the way to one of three successive third-place finishes, been Coppa Italia finalists three times and taste European success last term.
Last season
That crowning glory came in the Europa League, as the Italians advanced from a group containing Sporting Lisbon, Sturm Graz and Rakow, before meeting Sporting again in the last 16. They then beat Liverpool and Marseille to reach the final in Dublin, where they inflicted a first defeat of the season on Bayer Leverkusen to lift the trophy by a 3-0 scoreline, thanks to former Premier League winger Ademola Lookman’s hat-trick.
A six-match winning run right at the tail end of the campaign also secured a spot in the Champions League via a fourth-place finish, just two points behind Juventus in third spot, who beat them 1-0 in the final of the Coppa Italia.
The squad
This summer has seen Atalanta hold onto the majority of last season’s successful side, although goalkeeper Juan Musso and midfielder Teun Koopmeiners departed to Atletico Madrid and Juventus having started the Europa League final.
Charles De Ketelaere made his loan move permanent for £23 million, while the striking ranks were booted by the arrival of Italian international Mateo Retegui from Genoa for a similar fee after former West Ham man Gianluca Scammacca suffered an ACL injury last month.
His Azzurri teammates Raoul Bellanova and Marco Brescianini have also joined the ranks, while veterans Juan Cuadrado and Rui Patricio were picked up on free transfers. Ben Godfrey (Everton) and Odilon Kossounou (Bayer Leverkusen) were added to a squad captained by Rafael Toloi and also contains Lookman, Davide Zappacosta, Croatia regular Mario Pasalic, Dutchman Marten de Roon and former Gunner Sead Kolasinac.
Season so far
The season began with a 2-0 defeat to Real Madrid in the UEFA Super Cup final, but Atalanta bounced back from that by recording a 4-0 success at Lecce on the opening day with Brescianini and Retegui [above] notching braces on their league debuts.
However a last-minute penalty miss by Pasalic saw a point slip away after a 2-1 loss at Torino, before our fellow Champions League opponents Inter Milan put four past them without reply at the San Siro. A first home game of the campaign came against Fiorentina on Sunday, and they found themselves 1-0 and 2-1 down before winning 3-2, with Lookman scoring the winner with a fine solo strike.
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