€500m from selling young players - why Atalanta are one of Serie A's smartest clubs

Atalanta made history on Thursday night, when a convincing 3-0 win at home to Marseille confirmed the Serie A club's spot in their first ever European final. The result on the night, alongside the 1-1 draw in France the previous week, means Gian Piero Gasperini's side will now face Xabi Alonso's formidable and currently unbeaten Bayer Leverkusen at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland in the final of the Europa League in just under two weeks time. 

Although much of the media attention will be focused solely on Alonso, following his meteoric rise as one of Europe's most sought-after head coaches, Atalanta will undoubtedly deserve just as much praise for reaching this stage of the competition. Not only do "I Nerazzurri" play exciting, attacking football and have many fans across the continent, but they've also emerged as one of Italian and European football’s smartest clubs in recent years. 

Although Gasperini’s side may sit fifth in the Serie A league table, Atalanta have dispatched some sizable opponents this season, getting the best of Sporting in the earlier rounds of the Europa League, as well as Liverpool in the previous round of the competition. All whilst also recently beating Napoli in the league and AC Milan in the quarter-finals of the Italian Cup. However, what makes Atalanta the real envy of most clubs around Europe is their ability to identify and develop young players like no other club in Italy. And in many ways they have established themselves as one of the smartest clubs in Europe’s top leagues when it comes to careful planning in the transfer window. 

How much money have Atalanta made from player sales? 

Over the course of the last five seasons, Atalanta have made a fortune selling young players to bigger clubs in Italy and even directly to some of the Premier League’s richest clubs. Some of these players will be household names to Premier League fans, such as Rasmus Højlund and Cristian Romero, who joined Manchester United and Tottenham respectively for a combined €124 million. Amad Diallo (€21.3m move to Man Utd) and Dejan Kulusevski (€37m move to Juventus) also once called Atalanta home for a while, as well as many other young players. As such, over the course of the last five seasons the Italian club have netted no less than €521m in player sales since the start of the 2019/20 season. Not only is that the eighth highest figure in all of European football, but it’s also the second highest figure for any Italian club. When we then compare that to Atalanta’s spending on player signings in that same period (€370m), it points to a transfer balance of +€152m. Which is the ninth highest return in European football and comfortably the highest profits made from player trading in Italian football. 

Why are Atalanta so good at developing young players? 

Whether it be Diallo, Romero or Højlund, Atalanta have proved time and time again that they know how to put young players on the right path to stardom. “They have a very good youth system, one of the best in Italy and one of the best scouting set ups in the entire world,” said Jatin Dietl, Transfermarkt Serie A expert, when asked why Atalanta always seem to strike gold with young players. “And most of all they’ve been playing a similar style of football for years now, so their scouts and sports director know exactly what kind of characteristics a player has to have for being able to perform at Bergamo. Also, there is a calm ambience and not a lot of pressure which helps the player to grow and evolve in peace.”

Unlike most clubs in the Italian top-flight, Atalanta are one of only two clubs in Serie A that use an Under-23 team in the lower divisions of Italian football. This youth team provides an invaluable opportunity for young players to play senior football at a decent level, which clearly accelerates their development and prepares them well for the Atalanta first team. When we then couple those structural advantages with the fact that the club recently poached Roberto Samaden - considered the best youth academy manager in Italian football - from Inter Milan last summer, it seems clear that players and coaches alike appreciate how much time, effort and money Atalanta put into developing young players. And if their profits from the transfer window are anything to go by, they seem to be doing a fantastic job of it.