Atalanta and the nine “sisters of Italy”

Premier model? Okay, 4 billion euros in TV rights for “goal and City & Co”, against just a little billion barely scraped together by the poor Serie A. And then English football “the international flagship”, for organization, long-term vision and the most generous sponsors in the world from which to draw heavily. But in the meantime, where have the English women ended up in the Cups? All out of the Champion and Europa League. Ah yes, a British club is still in play. In the young and hybrid competition of the Conference League the radar has spotted Aston Villa (fourth force in the Premier League at -16 from the leaders, Arsenal) in which our Italian Nicolò Zaniolo plays, called with his teammates to overturn the 4-2 immediately against Olympiakos. A very difficult undertaking, but not impossible, and if Aston Villa succeeds, the challenge against Mr. Italiano’s Fiorentina in the final in Athens on May 29th could materialize. After the 3-2 first leg win against Bruges yesterday in Belgium, the Viola achieved a draw (1-1, Beltràn’s penalty in the 85th minute) and progressed to the final. Now if the Viola were to win the competition – last year they lost in the final against West Ham – the Italians in the Cup would become 9th. Fantasy football? No, the reality of a year of grace 2023-2024, perhaps underestimated even by experts in statistics applied to the game of football who would never have imagined a potential scenario of 9 Italian teams competing in the 2024-2025 European Cups. In fact, thanks to the specious and crazy UEFA ranking, next year our championship could place the top five in the current ranking: Inter, Italian champions, Milan, Juventus, Bologna and Atalanta. Then three teams in the Europa League, Roma, Lazio and Fiorentina, the latter in case they win the Conference League. And finally, we would play the “ninth” with Napoli who would enter the Conference thanks to the success of the Viola. In short, Serie A may be poor in financial and management terms – now the Government Agency will take care of everything, Minister Abodi docet – but on the pitch the results prove us right, as never before. Roma this evening (9pm) in Leverkusen, against Bayer of the new Hispanic guru But with the DDR treatment things are definitely better. Daniele De Rossi on the Giallorossi bench in place of the former Magician of Setùbal Mourinho (specialist in Cups and trebles) is demonstrating great skills as a motivator and his Roma has regenerated, at least in self-esteem (see Pellegrini and Dybala) and in spirit combative that he expresses in every match. One of the five places already available for next season’s “Super Champions”, increasingly enlarged and devoted to UEFA gigantism, has already been mortgaged by De Rossi’s Roma. But let’s get to the rich dish of this next night which could become truly “magical” for Atalanta. Bergamaschi one step away from the historic Europa League final. The prophet of the Nerazzurri Goddess, Gian Piero Gasperini, after the megablitz at Anfield Road, 0-3 against the Liverpool of the German philosopher Jurgen Klopp, now has the easy, but not obvious, task of eliminating Olimpique Marseille starting from the very favorable 1-1 of the Velodrome. The French team with a glorious past, under the patronage of Tapie, was capable, in 1993, of snatching a European Cup from Berlusconi’s stellar Milan. Marseille with a charm as cursed as the noirs of Jean-Claude Izzo but which, unless there is a total Casino (just to quote the bestseller by the Marseille writer) should stop in front of the Atalanta wall: alias, the Italian-style Borussia Dortmund (for the record Germans Champions League finalists, they eliminated the French sheiks of PSG). And if Master Gasperson also gets this final move right against the Marseille clan, he will find himself a “two-finalist”: Italian Cup, next Wednesday against Juventus at the Olimpico in Rome and Europa League, 22 May, final in Dublin. Atalanta is a consolidated model that has long been at a European level. This is demonstrated by its youth team, an inexhaustible source of talent, like that Spanish gem Jimenez (born in 2002) who has just dragged Mr. Modesto’s Atalanta Under 23, in name but not in fact, to the second round of the Serie C playoffs. In the event of the young Orobic youngsters being promoted to Serie B, Atalanta would be the first team ever to have two teams in the two major national leagues. Magic from upper Bergamo. Like the rebirth of striker Scamacca, also good for the next European Championships in Germany with Luciano Spalletti’s national team, like the reconstruction of the pure talent of the Belgian De Ketelaere (postponed, if not rejected by Pioli’s Milan) or like those 12 goals in Koopmeiners’ Serie A who is the most prolific Dutch sniper on our fields since Ruud Gullit. And we always return to the stellar Milan and that 90s football in which Serie A lived on income, even in Europe, with its magnificent “seven sisters” which also included Tanzi’s Parma and Cecchi Gori’s Fiorentina. We are reliving that spring of great beauty thirty years ago, now and here, thanks above all to the driving force that comes from the province, Bergamo and Florence, before the Giallorossi capital. And the entire Italian movement benefits from this new football prosperity, with or without State Agencies.