Atalanta BC

Atalanta BC, based at the Gewiss Stadium in Bergamo with a capacity of 23,439, won the UEFA Europa League in 2024, defeating Bayer Leverkusen 3-0 in the final, and have been a top-four Serie A club for six consecutive seasons.

Bergamo is a city of 120,000 people in Lombardy, 50 kilometres east of Milan. It was one of the worst-affected cities during the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. The Europa League win in May 2024 was experienced in that context: a city that had been through collective grief winning a European trophy for the first time in the club’s 116-year history. The 3-0 scoreline against Leverkusen, who had gone unbeaten in the Bundesliga the entire season, was the most emphatic result in a European final that year.

Gian Piero Gasperini has managed Atalanta since 2016 and built a tactical system, an aggressive high press combined with fluid positional attacking play, that has become the most copied model in European coaching. He did it with players that larger clubs had discarded or overlooked, and then sold them at profits that funded the next cycle. Josip Ilic̆ić’s form during the 2019-20 Champions League run, before personal difficulties interrupted his season, produced the quarter-final tie against Paris Saint-Germain in a single-leg game in Lisbon during which Atalanta lost narrowly to a side that included Neymar and Mbappé.

Mateo Retegui’s goals and Giorgio Scalvini’s emergence as a dominant centre-back have maintained Atalanta’s European presence after the inevitable departures that follow a trophy season.

When does Atalanta play? Gewiss Stadium hosts Serie A matches at standard Italian times: 15:00, 18:00, or 20:45 CET (UTC+1). Bergamo is in Lombardy, same timezone as Milan. A 20:45 CET kickoff means 19:45 GMT in London, 14:45 ET in New York, and 04:45 JST in Tokyo. Check Bergamo time for exact conversions. Full Serie A schedule available.