Thanks to their fifth back-to-back league win, Atalanta have punched their ticket to the 2024-2025 UEFA Champions League with two games to spare. The Nerazzurri will thus close the season with the arithmetic certainty of their 4th-ever stint on Europe’s biggest stage. As pointed out by Stats Perform’s Opta Facts, with the Nerazzurri currently being on 66 points, Atalanta have passed the milestone of 65 Serie A points for the fifth time in their history ever since the introduction of the 3-points-per-win ratio after the 2016/17 campaign (72), the 2018/19 season (69), the 2019/20 spell (78) and the 2020/21 stint (78) – all of them happening with Gian Piero Gasperini at the helm.
Breaking the deadlock 2 minutes and 2 seconds after coming off from the bench, Charles De Ketelaere has thus become the second-ever Belgian midfielder to have reached double-digit scoring figures in a single Serie A season ever since Radja Nainggolan ( who bagged 11 nets with Roma back in the 2016/17 season).
After providing the assist to CDK, it was Gianluca Scamacca who made it double, hence having his third-ever go with the goal+assist combo after the Empoli and Hellas Verona games: with 11 nets and 6 assists to his name thus far, the black-and-blue 90s’ offensive contribution in the Serie A has thus risen to a total of 17 goals favoured. Having already waylaid the Cristiano Doni and Sergio Floccari’s records (both tied on 17 nets) from the 2007/08 and 2008/09 respectively, no other Italian striker has done better in a single Serie A season as a Nerazzurro than Gianluca in the last 20 years. Additionally, the black-and-blue striker is the fourth Atalanta player to have featured the scoreboard in 6 or more consecutive Serie A games in the last 20 years after the likes of: Papu Gómez (his streak stopped at six in May 2017), Duván Zapata (who had two stints: 9 in January 2019 and six in December 2021) and Ruslan Malinovskyi ( who halted at 10 in May 2021).
With Scamacca, De Ketelaere and Koopmeiners having all moved past the 10-goals marker in the league, Atalanta can now flaunt three players with double-digit scoring figures in a single Serie A season for the fifth time after the 1949/50 campaign, the 1951/52 season, the 2019/20 spell and the 2020/21 stint.
Claiming his second Serie A cap and his first league start in the Serie A, Giovanni Bonfanti, who already featured in Atalanta’s starting XI in the Europa League game against Rakòw, has now become the third Atalanta player born from 2003 onward to start a Serie A game after Giorgio Scalvini and Rasmus Højlund.
Closing off with the customary individual figures provided by the Serie A’s official Match Report, while Aleksey Miranchuk was both the best Nerazzurro in terms of shots fired (4 in total, 3 on target) and the on-field benchmark as far as successful passes on the offensive third (26), key passes (8) and goal chances created (9), Mario Pašalić leads the standing for most successful passes overall (68). Lastly, not only does Giorgio Scalvini flaunt the most balls played (95); but he was also the best Atalanta player for ball retrievals (7).
