How has Atalanta risen in recent years to become a power to be reckoned with outside of the Italian A, the three northern powers, the Roma duo, the Slope and Fiorentina? Everything should start with the team's president Percassi (Percassi) Gasperinis, a 66-year-old family coach (Gasperini). Atlanta, created a team in 1907, the name comes from Atalanta, a huntress from ancient Greek mythology. (Atalantē), the team's name has nothing to do with the city they play in; Atlanta is based in Bergamo, the Lombardy region. (Bergamo), a small town with a population of less than 130,000.AC Milan and Inter Milan have two notable teams about an hour's drive from their neighborhood. It's natural that teams from this small town would not prioritize those from the Lombardy region.
Looking back at Atlanta's history, it's fair to say that it's been somewhere between the Italian top flight and the second division. In the early days it mostly stayed in the second division and didn't do particularly well. They finished fifth in the 1947-48 Boxing League season, which was Atlanta's best record in the Boxing League until 2017.
In the 1962-63 season, Atalanta finished eighth in the Serie A, but in Italy, they made it all the way to the final with a Domenghini (Domenghini) hat-trick to beat Torino 3-1 for the first top-flight title in the team's history.
From there, they continued to flounder in the Yi A and Yi B, falling to Yi C for the first time in 1981, but returning to Yi A in 1984.In the late 1980s, they made several trips to the European wars, and in 1988 made it to the European quarterfinals.In the 1996-97 season, the famous player Zaghi played for Atlanta. This season, he scored 24 goals and became the only Atlanta player to win the Golden Boot of the Boxing League. Antonio Percassi. Image from:borsaefinanza
After 2000, they were still playing back and forth between Yi A and Yi B. In 2010, one of the protagonists of the story, team owner Antonio Percassi. (Antonio Percassi) became the team's president for the second time, a local born in Bergamo Clusone who played Atlanta as a child. However, he didn't have a great talent in the path of soccer and decided to retire at the age of 24.
Perhaps the fact that he would make the decision to retire has something to do with the fact that he met the head of the Italian fashion group Benetton when he was 23 years old. After his retirement, Perkasi became a businessman and did business with big brands like Gucci, Ferrari and Negi as well as bringing Zara and Starbucks into Italy.
Bortolotti was in charge of the team at the time in 1990. After the death of (Cesare Bortolotti), Ruggeri, an entrepreneur who Antonio Percassi held a 19% stake in Atlanta in 1977, briefly took over as the team's president for four years. (Ivan Ruggeri) As president, Ruggeri suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and became a vegetable in 2008, and his successor, his son Alessandro, handed over ownership of the team to Antonio Percassi in 2010.
At the time, Atlanta was still in the second division, and Perkasi's goal was to get back to the Boxing League and stay there.In 2011, they returned to the Boxing League and never fell back to the second division. Scalvini.
Perkasi has always emphasized youth training for the team. When he first became president, he hired Favini youth training specialist. (Fermo Favini), Atlanta's youth training system was at one time considered to be in the top 10 in Europe and included Kessie, who used to play for Barcelona, Cristante, who is now at Roma, Spinazzola and Mancini Jr. as well as going to Inter such as Gagliardini and Bastoni. Atlanta's youth system was once considered top 10 in Europe.
In addition to youth players, Atalanta is also good at acquiring potentials and then selling them, such as Hoylén, who was sold to Manchester United for €70 million last summer, Romero, who will be sold to Tottenham Hotspur for €52 million in the summer of 2022 or Gossens, who will be sold for €1.2 million in the summer of 2022 to Inter Milan for €27.4 million. The absolute core of the team is now, Dutch midfielder Kupmenas was bought for 14 million euros at the time, and is now valued at 40 million euros, with rumors in the market of a 60 million euro team wanting to buy him, and is likely to leave the team this summer, leaving the team with a good income.
In addition, Perkasi decided to buy the stadium from the government in 2017. He purchased the Blue Athletic Stadium for 9 million euros and subsequently renovated it. Atalanta is also one of the few teams in the Boxing League with their own home stadium.
Perkasi said emotionally after winning the Europa League title, "It's been years in the making."
The fact that he was allowed to enter the Italian Football Hall of Fame in 2020 is the biggest encouragement for Perkasi's years in Atlanta.
