History as it lives and breathes. A story written but with chapters still to be written. Fiorentina and Atalanta are finalists again. One in the Conference League final after progressing late against Club Brugge. The other in the final of the Coppa Italia and the Europa League after a triumph against Marseille.
These are the finalists. A statement of fact. A statement in itself. A distinctive trait that defines eras for two coaches and their two clubs. The viola. The Dea. Vincenzo Italian. Gian Piero Gasperini. THE finalists.
Athens on May 29 will be Italiano’s third final in three seasons at Fiorentina. Dublin will be Gasperini’s fifth in eight years with Atalanta. Inevitably, their paths crossed along the way, the cups acting as a crucible for a new rivalry; the tournament one-upmanship, the overachievers in training.
Gasperini is not a friend of Florence and Florence is not one of his friends.
Fifteen years ago, his Genoa side finished on the same number of points as fourth-placed Fiorentina, but missed out on the head-to-head Champions League. Ironically, Fiorentina’s coach at the time, Italiano’s mentor Cesare Prandelli, hailed from the Bergamo region and, as well as playing for Atalanta, also began his managerial career at their legendary academy .
Most recently with Atalanta, Gasperini fanned the embers of enmity by calling out former Fiorentina winger Federico Chiesa for diving.
Before Chiesa left for Juventus, the Renaissance city rallied around its little prince. Gasperini had endured chants of “son of…” as he kept away from an increasingly hostile Artemio Franchi. “They are the true sons of…” he replied.
So, during his next visit to Florence, the locals gave him a purple T-shirt. On the back, a slogan declared Gasperini “one of us”.
It was the time when Atalanta eliminated Stefano Pioli’s Fiorentina from the semi-finals of the Coppa Italia (2019) and won in Florence for the first time in 27 years. But since Italiano has been on the Arno, the music has changed.
Fiorentina has become the kryptonite of Atalanta. He knocked them out of the Coppa Italia in his first season, winning every league and cup match against the Bergamaschi, and reached the Coppa Italia and Conference League finals last season.
In April, the trend looked set to continue. Once again semi-finalists, Fiorentina won the first leg 1-0 but had to regret the missed chances and the inspired form of Atalanta goalkeeper Marco Carnesecchi who pulled off one of the saves of the season to push back Nico Gonzalez.
Creating high-volume chances and low conversion rates have been as much a leitmotif of Italiano’s tenure as deep-cut runs and Atalanta made them pay at the Gewiss Stadium three weeks later, leveling the score at total then piling on the goals after Nikola Milenkovic’s red card in the 53rd minute. It was their turn to qualify for two finals in a single season.
As a reminder, Atalanta have now reached as many Coppa Italia finals under Gasperini as in the 110 years before his appointment. Their fans will be hoping to get third time lucky when they play Juventus in Rome next week.
But a European final? This is something unprecedented.
Atalanta came close in 1988 when, as a second division team, they reached the semi-finals of the old Cup Winners’ Cup. They were also minutes away from the Champions League last four in 2020, only for Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting and Marquinhos to score in stoppage time against a team reduced to 10 men because Gasperini had used all his substitutes and could not replace the injured Remo Freuler.
After knocking and knocking on the door, it finally opened. They will show up in Dublin dressed the same but looking different after building, selling, building and selling one Atalanta team after another. One year the Conti, Spinazzola, Kessie, Caldara vintage then that of Papu, Ilicic, Zapata, the limited edition Hojlund batch and now the Scamacca variety, of Ketelaere, Ederson.
It’s a similar story at Fiorentina.
The team that lost in the 90th minute to West Ham United in last season’s Conference League final has been eliminated. Brighton bought Igor, the centre-back whose mistake led to Jarrod Bowen’s goal. Manchester United turned Sofyan Amrabat’s head and loaned him out. Benfica have reinvested some of the €65 million (£56 million; $70 million) Paris Saint-Germain paid for Goncalo Ramos into their top scorer Artur Cabral. His strike partner Luka Jovic left for AC Milan.
But Fiorentina, a team that hadn’t qualified for Europe in five years at the time of Italiano’s hiring, reached back-to-back European finals for the first time since the Ye-Ye team of the early 1960s. And to think that Italiano only got the job after Fiorentina fell out with Rino Gattuso and decided to part ways after just a few weeks due to a failure to align with the strategy of transfer and the imminent presence of his agent, Jorge Mendes.
“It was unthinkable when I arrived in Florence,” Italiano said. “I told the fans that I would do everything to play in the cups. I hadn’t done it as a player. I was new to European football. You face high-level opponents and play in hostile atmospheres. I’m happy that we are in the final again.
As with Atalanta (and Roma in 2022 and 2023), it has been a learning process. More accelerated in the case of Fiorentina. A mentality forged at the start of last season when they drew against RFS Riga at Franchi and lost to Istanbul Basaksehir 3-0 away in the group stage.
The only game Fiorentina have lost in the Conference League since then was last year’s final in Prague, a disappointment that prompted the club’s veteran core of Pietro Terracciano, Milenkovic, Cristiano Biraghi and Giacomo Bonaventura to return in back and to redeem himself in the same way. how the experiences of Marten de Roon, Rafael Toloi, Hans Hateboer and Berat Djimsiti with Atalanta – the heartbreaking outings at Dortmund then Copenhagen in 2018 and at PSG in 2020 – helped create the enduring culture that made the competitive team outside Italy and capable of becoming famous. nights at Anfield and Amsterdam.
But what did Gasperini and Italiano ever gain, the superficial and ignorant cry?
A trophy continues to elude both coaches. Fiorentina haven’t won one since the 1996 Italian Super Cup, the “Irina, I love you” match when Gabriel Batistuta dedicated his goals against Milan to the love of his life. Fiorentina earned their place in this showpiece event at San Siro after beating Atalanta, no less, in the Coppa Italia final.
Atalanta have not won anything since the Coppa Italia more than 60 years ago, apart from Serie B in 1984, 2006 and 2011 – a reflection of their pre-Gasp identity as a yo-yo club.
“They normalized the extraordinary!”@JamesHorncastle discusses Gian Piero Gasperini’s incredible work at Atalanta…
🎙️ @julesbreach pic.twitter.com/IYOvjlutjH
– Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) April 11, 2024
Both coaches want one but don’t need one. “It’s stupid” to judge managers and teams that way, Gasperini said. “It’s like saying to a journalist: Well, you’re not an editor, are you? Does that make you a loser?
Its purpose is broader and needs to be developed.
The economics of football mean that the league titles of Leicester City, Bayer Leverkusen and Montpellier are outliers. The old clubs and vehicles of state wealth have been able to consolidate talent, rely on increasingly strong teams and reduce everyone’s chances of winning anything, to the point where the Everyone else’s success cannot be measured exclusively by trophies alone.
“It’s not true that we don’t win,” argued Gasperini. “You always win. In fact, you gain a lot. It’s like getting a promotion at work and being able to provide a better life for your family. This is what qualifying for Europe for the first time since 1991 looks like for Atalanta. This is what it’s like to accumulate 78 points and finish third in 2020 and 2021. “There are not many trophies in my career but I have a few medals.” Beating Liverpool twice at Anfield was like two. Win at Ajax another one.
“We will enter the history books,” Italiano said after becoming the first Fiorentina coach since Nandor Hideguti to reach back-to-back European finals. “It’s great to remember forever.”
One or both of them could win a trophy in the near future. Maybe as early as this month. But Gasperini and Italiano have already made history, in relative and still underestimated terms.
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(Top photo: Emilio Andreoli/Getty Images)