Fiorentina and Atalanta: Italy’s ‘finalisti’ etching their names in history

History as it lives and breathes. History written but with chapters still to write. Fiorentina and Atalanta are finalists again. One in the Conference League final after progressing late against Club Bruges. The other in the Coppa Italia and Europa League finals after a triumph over Marseille.

They are the finalists. A statement of fact. A statement in and of itself. A distinguishing feature of defining eras for two coaches and their two clubs. The Viola. The Dea. Vincenzo Italiano. Gian Piero Gasperini. The finalisti. 

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 have crossed along the way with the the cups acting like a crucible for a new rivalry; tournament oneupmanship, overachievers in coaching.

Gasperini is no friend of Florence and Florence is no friend of his.

Fifteen years ago, his Genoa team finished on the same number of points as fourth placed Fiorentina but missed out on the Champions League on head-to-head. Ironically enough, Fiorentina’s coach at the time, Italiano’s mentor Cesare Prandelli, hails from the area around Bergamo and, in addition to playing for Atalanta, also began his managerial career in its fabled academy.

More recently with Atalanta, Gasperini stoked the embers of enmity by calling out Fiorentina’s former 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 a …” when he stood on the sidelines at an increasingly hostile Artemio Franchi. “They’re the real sons of …,” he replied.

As such, on his next visit to Florence, the locals presented him with a purple T-Shirt. On the back, a slogan declared Gasperini “one of us”.

Gasperini waves to the crowd at the Gewiss Stadium (Image Photo Agency/Getty Images)

This was a 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 became Atalanta’s kryptonite. He knocked them out of the Coppa Italia in his first season, winning every game in league and cup against the Bergamaschi, and reached the Coppa Italia and Conference League finals last season.

In April, the trend looked likely to continue. Semi-finalists again, Fiorentina prevailed in the first leg 1-0 but were made to rue missed chances and the inspired form of Atalanta goalkeeper Marco Carnesecchi who pulled off one of the saves of the season to deny Nico Gonzalez.

High volume chance creation and low conversion rates have been as much a leitmotif of Italiano’s tenure as deep cup runs and Atalanta made them pay at the Gewiss Stadium three weeks later, levelling the score on aggregate then piling on the goals after Nikola Milenkovic’s red card in the 53rd minute. It was their turn to go to two finals in a single season.

For context, Atalanta have now reached as many Coppa Italia finals under Gasperini as they did in the 110 years before his appointment. Their fans will be hoping it is third time lucky when they play against Juventus in Rome next week.

But a European final? This is something unprecedented.

Atalanta came close in 1988 when, as a second division side, they made it to the semi-finals of the old Cup Winners’ Cup. They were minutes away from the last four of the Champions League in 2020, too, 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 subs and could not replace the injured Remo Freuler.

After knocking and knocking at the door, it has finally opened. They will show up in Dublin dressed the same but looking different after building, selling off, building and selling off one Atalanta team after another. One year the Conti, Spinazzola, Kessie, Caldara vintage then the Papu, Ilicic, Zapata one, the limited edition Hojlund batch and now the Scamacca, de Ketelaere, Ederson variety.

Atalanta’s players celebrate reaching the Europa League final (ISABELLA BONOTTO/AFP via Getty Images)

It’s a similar story to Fiorentina.

The side that lost in the 90th minute to West Ham United in last season’s Conference League final was picked off. Brighton bought Igor, the centre-back whose mistake led to Jarrod Bowen’s goal. Manchester United turned Sofyan Amrabat’s head and took him on loan. Benfica reinvested some of the €65million (£56m; $70m) Paris Saint-Germain paid for Goncalo Ramos in their top scorer Artur Cabral. His strike partner Luka Jovic left for AC Milan.

But Fiorentina, a team that had not qualified for Europe in five years when Italiano was hired, have made back-to-back European finals for the first time since the Ye-Ye team of the early 1960s. And to think Italiano only got the job after Fiorentina fell out with Rino Gattuso and decided to separate after only a few weeks because of a failure to align on transfer strategy and the looming presence of his agent, Jorge Mendes.

Fiorentina’s players celebrate reaching a second successive Conference League final (Fantasista/Getty Images)

“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 top opponents and play in hostile atmospheres. I’m happy we’re in a final again.”

As with Atalanta (and Roma in 2022 and 2023), it has been a learning process. More accelerated in Fiorentina’s case. A mentality forged early last season when they drew with RFS Riga at the Franchi and lost to Istanbul Basaksehir 3-0 away in the group stages.

The only game Fiorentina have lost in the Conference League since then was last year’s final in Prague, a disappointment which spurred on the club’s veteran core of Pietro Terracciano, Milenkovic, Cristiano Biraghi, Giacomo Bonaventura to run it back and make amends in much the same way Marten de Roon, Rafael Toloi, Hans Hateboer and Berat Djimsiti’s experiences with Atalanta — the heartbreaking exits to Dortmund then Copenhagen in 2018 and PSG in 2020 — helped create the lasting culture that has made the team become competitive outside of Italy and capable of famous nights at Anfield and in Amsterdam.

Fiorentina’s delighted support in Bruges on Wednesday (Fantasista/Getty Images)

But what have Gasperini and Italiano ever won, the shallow and ignorant cry?

A trophy continues to elude both coaches. Fiorentina have not won one since the 1996 Italian Super Cup, the “Irina, I love you” game when Gabriel Batistuta dedicated his goals against Milan to the love of his life. Fiorentina earned their place in that showpiece event at San Siro after beating Atalanta, no less, in the Coppa Italia final.

Atalanta haven’t won anything since the Coppa Italia more than 60 years ago other than Serie B in 1984, 2006 and 2011 — a reflection of their pre-Gasp identity as a yo-yo club.

“They’ve normalised 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 idiocy” 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?”

His point is a wider one, in need of elaboration.

The economics of football make Leicester City, Bayer Leverkusen and Montpellier’s league titles outliers. The legacy clubs and state wealth vehicles have been able to aggregate talent, draw on deeper and deeper squads and reduce everyone else’s chances of winning anything to the point that success for everybody else cannot exclusively be measured in trophies alone.

Lookman fires in a shot against Marseille (Stefano Guidi/Getty Images)

“It’s not true that you don’t win,” Gasperini argued. “You still win. You win a lot actually. It’s like getting a promotion at work and being able to give your family a better life.” That’s what qualifying for Europe for the first time since 1991 felt like for Atalanta. That’s what racking up 78 points and finishing third in 2020 and 2021 felt like. “There aren’t many trophies in my career but I’ve got a few medals.” Beating Liverpool twice at Anfield felt like two. Winning away to Ajax another.

“We’ll be in the history books,” Italiano said after becoming the first Fiorentina coach since Nandor Hideguti to reach consecutive European finals. “It’s great to be remembered forever.”

One or both of them may win a trophy in the near future. Perhaps as soon as this month. But Gasperini and Italiano have, in relative and still underrated terms, already made history.

(Top photo: Emilio Andreoli/Getty Images)