Gasperini: ‘Atalanta and Ballon d’Or celebration’

Gian Piero Gasperini is ‘honoured’ to be up for the Ballon d’Or for coaches and wants a new look Atalanta to put on a ‘celebration’ against Fiorentina in their revamped stadium.

It kicks off on Sunday at 14.00 UK time (13.00 GMT) at the Gewiss Stadium in Bergamo.

This is their first home fixture of the season, as they had been forced to travel while reconstruction work was completed on the arena.

“I think the most important thing for us is playing in our stadium after 112 days away,” said Gasperini in his press conference.

“It is a fantastic structure, I think tomorrow will be a celebration and we must recognise that Antonio Percassi will remain the most important man in the history of Atalanta. This stadium was a gesture of love from him towards everyone. People always talk about stadiums for the commercial revenue, but it was to give the fans their own home.”

Gasperini is a candidate for most important man in the club’s history too, as he took them from relegation strugglers to Europa League winners and regular Champions League competitors.

It also earned him a nomination for the Ballon d’Or given to coaches, where he is up against Pep Guardiola, Carlo Ancelotti, Xabi Alonso, Luis de la Fuente and Lionel Scaloni.

“This is an extraordinary result for me, recognition within football at the global level. It is not just a reward for winning the Europa League, I consider it something representing my career and all I’ve done in these years.

“It is an enormous recognition, a great honour, I am very grateful to all those who helped me achieve this.”

Gasperini and Atalanta keep growing

Atalanta have stuttered so far this season amid an injury crisis and transfer chaos, but finally have a settled squad now that the break for international duty is over.

“We signed a lot of new players over the last 10-15 days, but from here on there will be no more transfer interruptions, we will try to amalgamate the squad. Nicolò Zaniolo has to catch up from the injury, so it’s a new start for him too.

“We’ve got 10 new outfield players and that probably wasn’t what we wanted, but that’s how it happened and we need to rebuild from that. We’ve got to quickly assemble the best team from these new characteristics.”

Fiorentina are coached by one of the many former Gasperini players who learned from his style of football, Raffaele Palladino.

“Raffaele already did well at Monza with two important seasons, I am convinced he has the intelligence and capability to improve this Fiorentina side. I’m also happy that Robin Gosens is back in Italy, there had been a few words exchanged with Atalanta, but he went to Fiorentina.

“It is going to be a difficult and balanced game, last season we beat them in the Coppa Italia semi-final, they’ve added Moise Kean, Andrea Colpani and Albert Gudmundsson, confirming their ambition.”

Atalanta are in the new, expanded Champions League format and will start next Thursday against Arsenal in Bergamo.

“Europe is much more complicated now, it has the best teams in Europe and the new format will be fascinating. I still think it will take over a lot of our thoughts, but we can bring that form through to Serie A,” concluded Gasperini.