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On Wednesday at 9pm CET, FC Barcelona will be welcoming Italian side Atalanta to the Estadi Olimpic in the first ever meeting between the teams. Let’s take a closer look at the visitors.
Bergame is a city of only about 120. 00 in Lombardia, in northern Italy, it is really a component of the largest metropolitan region, located in a magnificent environment between the foothills of the Alps. Its main tourist sites come with Piazza Vecchia, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and the Venetian walls around the old town.
Founded in 1907, Atalanta Bergammasca Calcio played her first season in Serie A in 1937. They went to play more seasons on the sensitive Italian flight (63) without winning than any other club and also maintain the record of the maximum relegations Series B, for return to the next level. From time to time one of the “other” clubs in the Italian football scene, its only taste of primary cutlery came here in 1963 when they won Coppa Italia.
The last few years have been the most glamorous in the club’s history. In 2010, they finished a league record third and repeated the trick that two seasons later also meant that while European football had never been a very rare pleasure for Atalanta enthusiasts. In the past, they are now a normal feature of UEFA festivals, and this is their fourth appearance at the biggest festival of all.
The biggest moment of all happened last season, when they won the Europa League, beating Bayer Leverkusen in the final, the game the Germans lost all season.
The club is also recognised for having one of the best youth systems in the world. A recent study ranked it sixth in the world based on the number of first division players produced by the club.
There are just two players who wore both the shirts of Barça and Atalanta, namely Franck Kessié and Demetrio Albertini.
Kessie, from the Ivory Coast played his first European football at the Italian club, while his solitary season in blaugrana was 2022/23, He is particularly remembered for scoring the winning goal in the Clásico that year. He’s now at Al-Ahli in Saudi Arabia and recently came to see Barça beat Real Madrid 5-2 in the Spanish Super Cup in that country, making a surprise appearance on Barça One in the process!
While it all started for Kessie in Bargamo, for Albertini it was the other way round. It was in the twilight of his career when joined from Lazio in 2004, playing just 14 games before switching to Barça in the winter transfer window to play under Frank Rijkaard. He only featured in six games (318 minutes) and retired at the end of the season.
2024/25 was one of the excellent excellent seasons in the history of Atalanta. In series A, they accumulated an ordinary series of 11 consecutive victories from October to December and sat just to the maximum sensible of the table. Unfortunately, they followed this with a series of 3 draws and a defeat, allowing Napoli and Inter Milan As .
Results of the Championship League 0–0 Arsenalshakhtar Donetsk 0–3 Atalantaatalanta 0–0 Celtic VFB Stuttgart 0–2 Atalantayoung Boys 1–6 Atalantaatalanta 2–3 Real Madridatalata 5-0 Graz Sturm Graz
In the Champions League, their only defeat to date opposite Real Madrid, and apart from the 3 resolutions they admitted that day, they have conceded only one purpose in their other six games. They have put six young boys and five more beyond Sturm Graz and are already assured of a position in the knockout stages and can even finish in the 8 most sensible if they can get a result on Wednesday opposite Barca.
Juan Cuadrado (Colombia 116), Rui Patricio (Portugal 108), Mario Pašalić (Croatia 72), Berat Djimsiti (Albania 61) Odilon Ksounou (Ivory Coast 25), Charles de Ketelaere (Belgium 20), Gianluca Scamacca (Italy 20),,, Italy 20),,,, Italy), Nicolò Zaniolo (Italy 19), Mateo Retegui (Italy 18), Lazar Samardžić (Serbia 17), Isak Hierge (Sweden 17), Rafael Tolói (Italy 14)
In addition to a stint at Pescara, Gian Piero Gasperini spent his playing career outside the gates of Serie A, and it was as a coach that he made a name for himself, starting with Juventus’ youth system and ending with a touchdown assignment with Genoa, which he only guided in Serie A still also in the Europa League. It was enough to impress Inter Milan, his next article, things don’t look good there and the next hour in Palermo and shortly in Genoa, he took over Atalanta in 2016.
His initial duty only to save the Liquage Club. But it has not only achieved this. During his 8 years in charge, he reshaped the club into not only one of the most powerful outfits in Italy, but in all of Europe, and through playing football that earned fans the whole world.