All hail King Charles the First! As you might have noticed, De Ketelaere has taken the motto “the early bird takes the worm” at face value: he saw the right opening and, after taking Atalanta’s fandom by storm with his goals, his assists and his tricks, brought the first ItalianOptic Player of The Month award home!

It didn’t take Charles long to win the hearts of all Atalanta’s fans over, making his mark in his very first minutes as a Nerazzurro: coming off the bench in the league-opener against Sassuolo, he turned the tide of a rather tough match and broke the deadlock with a superb header. From then on, Charles simply kept on dazzling: his debut goal was followed by an assist against Monza, another golden debut scoring against Raków in the UEL opener, and another assist against Cagliari, oozing class and grit in equal measure every single time.

Teun Koopmeiners, a household name of the ItalianOptic branded contest, climbed on the second step of the Player of the Month podium. Off to a great season start, after finding his scoring ways against Fiorentina, the Oranje midfielder scored the winning goal to vanquish Verona away: just like last season, we are sure we haven’t seen the last of Teun in this contest.

Coming full circle, another signing took hold of the third place; it is none other than Sead Kolašinac! Atalanta’s new defender has already become a fan favourite thanks to his determination, his mindset and his nifty defensive cutbacks.

Kudos to Charles for his first Player of the Month, might this be the first of many?