"Everyone copies our game model"

A very discreet wrought iron gate opens and the visitor passes into the garden of Villa Schubiger, a jewel of art nouveaubergamasco. In stark black, the host appears puzzled as his little fox eyes cast a searching gaze. "I don't usually give interviews," he says, "who runs the club is my son Luca." True to his stubborn provincial custom, at 67 years old Antonio Percassi plays down himself. But this patriarch of a long line of local businessmen is primarily responsible for the most astonishing revolution in European football in recent years. The epic that since 2010 has taken Atalanta de Bergamo from Serie B to the quarterfinals of the Champions League with the most daring, joyous and scoring football on the continent. The tie that this Wednesday (21.00, Movistar LC) will play with PSG will confront two antagonistic models.

The calendar

Quarters

1. Atalanta-PSG. This Wednesday. Estádio da Luz.

2. Leipzig-Athletic. This Thursday. José Alvalade.

3. Barcelona-Bayern. Friday 14. Estádio da Luz.

4. Manchester City-Lyon. Saturday 15. José Alvalade.

Semifinals

Winners 1-2. Tuesday 18. Estádio da Luz.

Winners 3-4. Wednesday 19. José Alvalade.

Final

Sunday 23. Estádio da Luz.

All games, at 9:00 p.m. (Movistar LC).

“We have always put the accent on the development of the youth sectors; it is our foundation, ”says Percassi when asked about the key to his success. He says it as if, deep down, there is no secret to discover. But speak with knowledge of the facts. He himself played in the Atalanta's first team in the central position before retiring in 1978 to embark on a business career that led him to link the real estate business with the fashion industry through partnerships with Luciano Benetton, Ralph Lauren or Amancio Ortega. In 2010 he assumed the presidency of Atalanta, placed his son Luca, another former player from the quarry, as delegated administrator, and let Giovanni Sartori, the old sports director, take care of the recruitment of talent with a network of 30 scouts who act around the world, with the focus on the Padana plain.

"The most important thing is good scouts," he warns. “Then you need coaches, structure. We are a provincial club but in the training of players we are at the forefront of almost all championships. From the fry to the reserve team passing through the sub-16 and sub-18. This is our story. I and my son have been trained as footballers in the Atalanta quarry. We know better than anyone how important it is in a club like ours ”.

"Being a professional player is an advantage for me"

The contradiction is obvious. Of the starting team that beat Valencia at Mestalla in March, only the goalkeeper, Sportiello, and a central defender, Caldara, are homegrown players. The rest are foreigners acquired in the market. For unheard of prices when compared to what the rivals who accompany him in Lisbon in the Champions League have paid for their squads: Djimsiti (free), Gosens (900,000 euros), Palomino (4.5 million euros) , Freuler (1.9 million), De Room (1.3), Hateboer (1.4), Pasalic (on loan), Ilicic (6) and Papu Gómez (4.5). In total, 19 million euros.

"We cannot spend like the big clubs," says the manager, who points to the most brilliant budget balance in Serie A. "We can only invest in a player of a certain type; and if we spend 15 million in a signing it is because an opportunity presents itself [like Duván Zapata]. But the law is to have your feet on the ground, to bet on the boys and on the players with projection. To strengthen the team we have sold young people and we have invested well in foreigners ”.

Trained in the modern sports city of Zingonia - an old utopian project of the industrial architecture of the 60s - the Cristante youth squad, transferred to Rome for 21 million; Bastoni and Gagliardini, traded to Inter for 50; Conti, transferred to Milan for 24; and Caldara, transferred to Juve for 19, are some of the most important operations of Atalanta in the last five years. The axis of a complex network of exchanges, since 2015 Atalanta transferred or loaned 370 players, most of them from their lower categories, Italians and foreigners. In return, he entered 283 million euros, according to the Transfermarkt portal, and used it to sign footballers for 203 million. With the remainder, the club bought its own stadium.

“We had a life thinking of acquiring the stadium in property; and finally four years ago we bought it from the City Council and we started to remodel it ”, confesses Percassi of the refounding of the old communal stadium from the 1930s, which he considers his great achievement. “It will become a gem. Between acquisition and restoration it will cost us 45-50 million. We have finished the first phase. Now we will do the side stand and next year the other corner. In two years everything new ”.

“We are a provincial club; Gasperini changed our mentality "

Since the financial crisis of 2008, no major European club has been able to build a new stadium and at the same time sustain the sporting evolution of its team. Atalanta has achieved it from the discretion of a leadership much more complex than it seems.

"The advantage of having been a professional soccer player is that you understand soccer," says the businessman. “You understand how a locker room works. You understand how to face difficult moments, and this is important because throughout a championship you always encounter difficulties. We are lucky to know what a player's head is like. What you should tell him, and how best to approach them to get them back. We have a good feeling , but our relationship is simple. If I speak, let it be fair. Talking a lot to the players is breaking their balls. The atmosphere in Zingonia is familiar. For us this environment is fundamental. We are a provincial club. The treatment has to be direct, simple, familiar, passionate, amateur. Here the fans automatically understand if you are here because you want the club or because you want to do business ”.

"There are very important leaders who have made history with their great economic strength," he observes. "On the other hand, with our difference we have achieved extraordinary results thanks to the fact of having found a terrific coach who is making history."

Because he knows how a locker room works, Percassi strives to stand apart from those he designates as protagonists. If you attribute the economic sustainability of the project to the quarry and its scouts, you do not hesitate to blame the coach, Gian Piero Gasperini, for the sporting success. "Gasperini changed our mentality," he says. “Our goal was always to save ourselves. To continue in Serie A. I did not know if this type of offensive football proposed by the coach could be developed in a provincial team. There was a risk. Now we will celebrate ten years in Serie A. This is a record in the club's history. We did not expect such a transformation. With a type of football that has become something revolutionary. A model that we are all copying now. We are in the international line of projection of football ”.