ALVISE CAGNAZZO: Atalanta have all the ingredients to become a top side in Serie A

Atalanta should no longer be considered the Cinderella of Italian football as they have all the hallmarks of a top club.

They have a very strong and competent owner, Antonio Percassi, who has strengthened the ownership by selling part of the shares abroad, and has an exceptional coach like Gian Piero Gasperini, a kind of ‘Good Dictator’ who argues with the players when he realizes they are losing their level of dedication and sacrifice to the team.

Atalanta is a team made up of many different players with Gasperini, the right man in the right place. Without him, the team would have lost its intensity, having been unable to maintain such high standards of performance during their recent histories in Serie A and in the Champions League.

Gasperini appears to be a magician who is able to always make the right choices at the best moments without ever letting the club spend too much money – a trait highly valued especially in Italy.

Like Napoli, Atalanta is also undefeated and shares this statistical record with a team likely to fight for the Serie A title to the very end. The club’s management costs are not high and this allows them to manage the market.

The main feature of the Bergamo team is to let players who want to experience new career opportunities, or who have problems with coach Gasperini, leave without hesitation.

No one would have thought that the club could lose top players such as Pierluigi Gollini, ‘Papu’ Gomez, Robin Gosens and Josip Ilicic without any problems, but Gasperini has shown that he can do without all the players without preserving Atalanta’s quality. No one is indispensable to Gasperini, everyone is useful, but the coach’s football philosophy will not change for any player.

His new Atalanta is less spectacular and more solid, and despite many starts in all divisions, it is the solidity of the defense that amazes all Bergamo fans.

In a few months, many of the key players of their best moments in recent years have left Bergamo, but the team has been able to recover in the market and through its own youth sector.

Atalanta boss Gian Piero Gasperini is the right manager at the right time for the Italian side

GASPERINI’S GOLD MINE: SCALVINI, OKOLI AND DEMIRAL

Giorgio Scalvini, Merih Demiral and Caleb Okoli are three stars who could dominate Serie A now and in the future.

The trio of youngsters is Gasperini’s best explorer and an important part of the manager’s reconstruction work.

Together they are no more than 63 years old together and they represent the great work of the young training center of Zingonia, where several top players were born in the past before winning national and international trophies.

Giorgio Scalvini (left) is one of the youngsters who have excelled at Atalanta so far this season

According to ‘Repubblica’, Scalvini, the Italian defender born in 2003, ended up in the notes of Roma, Lazio, Juventus and Inter but also of the major European top clubs.

With the 21-year-old defender Okoli, on the other hand, the pressure from Milan is great. After Fikayo Tomori and Pierre Kalulu, the club is looking for a young defender to retire Kjaer.

Inter’s interest is always active on Demiral, especially if Giuseppe Marotta manages to sell at least one defender between Milan Skriniar and Stefan De Vrij in the summer. Demiral, Okoli and Scalvini today represent the gold mine of Atalanta, which every year seems to produce four to five players of great physique and quality who are ready to play in Serie A.

The total value of the three players today is around €110 million (£96 million) and if Atalanta managed to return to Europe it would be even higher. There is a lot of enthusiasm in Bergamo and the city is following with interest the events of the team that continues to win and achieve extraordinary sporting results.

Caleb Okoli (right) also impressed and attracted the attention of AC Milan, among others

THE LOOKMAN SHOW

In the Premier League at Everton, Fulham and Leicester they didn’t believe in him, but in Italy Lookman has proven to be a modern and effective winger who scores and provides many assists.

He has already erased Ilicic’s memory and sent Jeremie Boga, the French winger who was to replace Gomez after his departure to Seville, to the bench.

Today Atalanta can no longer do without the Nigerian winger, who wants to look like Tijani Babangida, the Ajax star who ran like a horse and stabbed the opponent’s defense like the point of a spear.

Ademola Lookman is enjoying his football again and has become an important member of the team

The abbreviation of Ademola for Atalanta fans is ‘Mola’, and in the Orobic town there is a dialect expression that reads ‘Mola Mia’, which means: never give up.

Against Sassuolo. Lookman was substituted in the 68th minute after making the Emilian team’s defenders feel like it was Halloween night days before. His running style sparks enthusiasm among the fans who are constantly amazed at how a player of these qualities has always struggled to find space at the top clubs.

The attacker has become an untouchable on the chessboard of Gasperini who today, in the absence of Duvan Zapata, continues to bet on his goals to stay at the top of the table.

Unlike the Portuguese No 17 of Milan, Lookman knows how to play several roles, as a high attacker, as a second striker but also as a first striker.

He is an extraordinary player who quickly changes the way he plays without ever diminishing his performance. Lookman immediately built up an excellent feeling with the city of Bergamo and suffered no setbacks in the life of football with insane speed like the one conceived by Gasperini, who cannot do without him in training today.

The Nigerian winger has four goals and three assists in 10 league games so far this season