Atalanta keep punching above their weight

Milan – Atalanta head into tomorrow’s Serie A top-five showdown with dejected Roma on the highest of highs after reaching their first-ever European final in the greatest night of the club’s 117-year history.

Used to punching above their weight, traditionally tiny Atalanta keep reaching new heights under Gian Piero Gasperini (right) and will face Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League final on 22 May after yet another swashbuckling performance against a sorry Marseille side on Thursday night.

In eight brilliant years under Gasperini Atalanta have failed to win the trophy their often thrilling football has deserved.

Now they have the chance to claim two in seven days as they also face Juventus in the Italian Cup final on Wednesday.

Just getting to those two finals is a remarkable achievement for a club whose only major honour is the 1963 Italian Cup.

The furthest Atalanta had previously gone in European competition was the last-four in the 1988 Cup Winners Cup.

Back then they were still a second division team.

But the rough-and-ready days of Serie B are long gone as the well-organised club led by the local Percassi family continue to progress beyond their station while still staying true to their home town of Bergamo.

Atalanta were cruelly denied a Champions League semi-final by Paris Saint-Germain in 2020.

“Maybe the final is between two clubs that don’t make the TV companies very happy, but it will give hope to plenty of teams,” Gasperini told reporters.

“You can play good football without having millions of fans all over the world. Football is also about the fans we all saw in the stadium tonight [Thursday] in Bergamo.”

A good chunk of those fans were shaking off hangovers yesterday morning after thousands flooded into the centre of Bergamo to celebrate their team’s 4-1 aggregate thumping of Marseille.

Their buoyant mood contrasts sharply with Roma’s, who came close to completing a remarkable comeback against Leverkusen in Thursday’s other Europa League semi only to suffer late heartbreak in Germany.

Daniele De Rossi’s team have been running on fumes for weeks and now have to break back into the top five if they are to qualify for the Champions League for the first time since 2018. –