Atalanta: Market value, wage bill and how much they spent to win Europa League

Atalanta have the 8th highest wage bill in Serie A and spent barely €211m to build the team that won the Europa League last night.

Atalanta completed a historic feat last night by beating Bayer Leverkusen 3-0 in the Europa League Final and winning the first European trophy in their history.

It was inspired by an Ademola Lookman hat-trick, but all Atalanta players impressed in Dublin last night against a team that had not lost a match across all competitions for nearly a year.

As Gian Piero Gasperini and many pundits have reiterated in the last few hours, Atalanta’s biggest merit is probably winning a major trophy while keeping costs under control and, sometimes, making a profit through big sales.

Rasmus Hojlund, Dejan Kulusevski, Franck Kessié, and Cristian Romero are only some of those who left Bergamo for big transfer fees over the last few years. They’ve been replaced wisely by La Dea, and, as reported by Sky Sport, Atalanta only spent €211m to purchase all the players in the current team.

Some of them are products of the club’s academy: Marco Carnesecchi, the starting goalkeeper in Serie A, Giorgio Scalvini and Matteo Ruggeri. Others, like Sead Kolasinac and Michel Adopo were signed on a free transfer last summer.

Hat-trick hero Ademola Lookman joined Atalanta from RB Leipzig for just €9.3m in 2022, while the most sought-after player of the team, Teun Koopmeiners cost just €14m in 2021. Atalanta’s asking price for the Dutch midfielder is now €60m.

Atalanta’s market value and wage bill

However, the sign of Atalanta’s development is that they completed their three most expensive signings over the last two seasons.

Ederson joined La Dea from Salernitana for €22.9m in 2022, and Gianluca Scamacca and El-Bilal Touré moved to Bergamo last summer for €25.5m and €29m, respectively.

The combined value of their players is €384.6m, approximately €137m more than what they spent to buy them all.

Atalanta also have the 8th highest wage bill in Serie A, with Fiorentina, Lazio, Napoli, Milan, Roma, Inter and Juventus spending more than the Nerazzurri on salaries.