De Ketelaere channels winning habits as solo effort drives Atalanta top | Nicky Bandini
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Gian Piero Gasperini’s project embodies a mentality that echoes an NFL legend after 11-game winning run. The game had not even kicked off and it was starting to feel like a prize ceremony. Ademola Lookman held up the trophy he won as the African men’s footballer of the year. Atalanta’s president, Antonio Percassi, beamed as he handed over Serie A’s coach of the month award to Gian Piero Gasperini.
![[Ademola Lookman poses with his African footballer of the year award.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e7f8dc4e1cd7d6e867207f911c24942dcafb36f5/0_0_4096_2731/master/4096.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Percassi’s son, Luca, the club’s CEO, spoke for the TV cameras about the recent quality of life survey conducted by the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. It had ranked Bergamo, where Atalanta are based, as the best place to reside in all of Italy. “As a Bergamasco, I can confirm those statistics,” he replied with a laugh.
The American football coach Vince Lombardi, a five-time NFL champion in the 1960s and still regarded as one of the greatest in his sport, famously said: “Winning is not a sometime thing. It’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all of the time.”.
How fitting, six decades later, that a football team from the Lombardy region should carry that message forward. Atalanta never used to win much of anything, besides the occasional Serie B title as they bounced back and forth between Italy’s top two divisions. Before the Europa League triumph in May, their last major trophy dated back further than Lombardi’s.
Now, though, they have the habit. Atalanta arrived for Sunday’s game against Empoli on a run of 10 consecutive league victories. That run had carried them to the top of the Serie A table, though Napoli’s win over Genoa on Saturday had bumped them back into second pending the result of this game.
