Charles De Ketelaere’s star shines in the black and blue sky of Bergamo, far from the darkness of the Milanese nights. In Atalanta which is flying higher and higher, which has virtually won a place in the next Champions League (the Bergamo players will have to score just three points in the next three days), and tomorrow the first of two finals will be played, the Flemish jewel is making the difference , back to shine like in the Bruges years, when he was a golden boy, a predestined, but with still everything to prove.
Two years ago CDK arrived at Milan with enormous expectations, which were then confirmed a year later, with another shirt, that of Atalanta. Who had the foresight in believing in Bruges’ talent, doing everything to get it, after following him for years. The Goddess wanted the young De Ketelaere already in the summer of 2020: there were intense contacts with Bruges, who were then asking for 15 million for the blond 19-year-old who had just exploded. The Nerazzurri management was negotiating him in July 2020, they wanted him to grow behind Josip Ilicic, then 32 years old, and then replace him a couple of years later. Instead, the sudden blackout of the Slovenian champion, sucked into a depressive black hole after the pandemic, forced the Goddess to immediately find a ready and experienced playmaker to replace him, identified in the Russian Aleksey Miranchuk. In the summer of 2021, Atalanta is still negotiating CDK with Bruges but the price has risen and the Nerazzurri meanwhile also have another expensive objective to achieve, the purchase of Teun Koopmeiners.
In the end the Flemish talent arrived in Bergamo, not from Bruges, but from Milan. Atalanta had never stopped waiting for him and signed him at the right time, at 22 years old, practically at no cost, making a bargain, because in the end, adding the expensive loan with the already decided definitive redemption from Milan, 23 million plus the various bonuses, the Belgian will cost around 28-29 million in total, the same amount invested last summer to get the Malian El Bilal Toure’. De Ketelaere’s season for the Nerazzurri was amazing with 13 goals and 8 assists overall in the league and cups. Finalizer. Prompter. Leader. Warrior.
He started off well straight away, scoring two goals and making two assists in his first month: changing shirts and cities had benefited him from his first day with the Nerazzurri. Then Maestro Gasperini did the rest with daily work in Zingonia and trust every Sunday. Shaping him tactically, approaching the goal as a striker, first or second, alongside a center forward like Scamacca or with the various Lookman, Muriel, Miranchuk.
Gasp first relaunched it, then forged it. Even mentally. “I always tell him that he shouldn’t lower his head if he loses a ball”, the coach repeated in the autumn, when it seemed that the boy had no character, no attributes. Today De Ketelaere has become a fighter, he wins balls, elbows, sinks his leg: he still has that polite and shy ‘good boy’ face, but on the pitch he really makes himself felt.
The rest is being done by the talent that he has never lacked, as Gasperini underlined on Sunday evening after his brace against Roma, praising him: “He’s an intelligent boy who knows football. We all know that he knows how to play well. It’s not difficult with he finds positions, he has physicality and has very, very important margins.”
In Bergamo in May 2019, a huge mural was created to celebrate the first historic qualification for the Champions League, with the faces of Gasperini and the three tenors Gomez-Ilicic-Zapata. Another one will probably be made at the end of May, with the three new tenors: Koopmeiners, Scamacca and De Ketelaere. Who next year, without Koopmeiners, will become the leader of the Goddess in the Champions League.
