European football is a wildly warped microcosm for a capitalistic market. Literally anything can happen. Players have almost complete freedom to move between teams and leagues on a whim. Clubs can be wiped away only to reappear like a phoenix due to passionate fans with a vision – I guess you can call that phenomenon a start up? When the fans and consumers speak, the markets realize the limits of their own powers to much chagrin. And you just never know when some oil state mogul is going to come in and disrupt everything just because it can.
The European football landscape really is wild. If you put it in the above terms, you can sometimes understand why reasonably smart people can make poor decision after poor decision. Its really hard to separate emotion from logic in football decision making when streams of revenue to keep a project afloat can be ruthlessly snatched away, just like any capitalistic venture. Just look at the way some Championship teams in England will spend just to get a piece of that Premier League television money. Money brings sustainability, and without a thought-out plan with a clear execution strategy, playing blackjack and hitting on 14 is sometimes the only option you’ve got when you’ve dug yourself into a deep enough hole. Some clubs have gotten lucky with this poor strategy, and it has bitten many more than it has helped.
Not every club is lucky enough to get an olive branch from the UAE, Qatar, Thailand, or Russia. This makes any grassroots success story not only exceedingly rare, but one that should be celebrated and studied as a future blueprint. Again back to our capitalistic microcosm, the definition of success has become so twisted that its easy to fall victim to what responsibilities owners have to their players, fans, shareholders, and cities. I may be in the minority, but to define success I couldn’t care less about trophies. To me I equate it to an unexpected dividend that goes a long way to stabilizing the future of the business. Heavyweights excluded – why anyone would go all in for one year of glory rather than sustained steady success is beyond me. Perhaps its my risk-averse nature, but if Atalanta won the Scudetto next year by doubling its salary, started falling into the read, had to sell everyone off, and were relegated in four years; the Scudetto would not be worth it. I want to be in for the long haul, with a vision that has Atalanta playing top level football for years to come – not to be a flash in the pan. I think Luca and Antonio Percassi have demonstrated that they have a similar vision to smartly run their project with the efficiency of a Toyota factory. But more on them later, let’s look at how they compare to another visionary in American sports.
Meet Greg Schiano, the head football coach of Rutgers University in New Jersey. Schiano is now in his second stint with the University after taking Rutgers from the laughing stock of the college football landscape (literally for years) to a respectable program that consistently challenged for Big East titles and churned out star caliber NFL players. The work Schiano did to bring Rutgers to respectability is nothing short of remarkable, and he was rewarded for his efforts by getting the head coaching job with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (unfortunately this stint did not go as well). In a way college football is a lot like European football. Smaller schools with less renowned programs like Rutgers, Cincinnati, Boise State, or Central Florida have to put in tireless leg work to keep up with the Ohio State’s, Oklahoma’s, and Alabama’s of the world. The following laundry list of exhausting tasks that must be completed year after year only begins to scratch the surface of what happens on campus:
- Develop good relationships with high school coaches in state, and other out of state recruiting hot-spots
- Convince kids to come play for their smaller programs
- Turn raw high school athletes into respectable college football players (big difference between athlete and player)
- Ensure coursework is being accomplished (at least the good coaches do this like Schiano)
- Stave off all the elite Universities when they come to flex their recruiting muscles
It’s an agonizingly hard job. And when you have 85 scholarships to fill, I cannot imagine the uphill battle it takes for a coach to not only recruit talent he can develop, but hire the right personnel to train players, have their skills translate into gameday results, and do it every single year given the revolving door of collegiate sports with graduation. For Alabama, Michigan, and Notre Dame; its easier. Nick Saban literally just has to show up at a high school and his work is nearly done (while simultaneously pinching off all the players smaller schools had to put good legwork into just getting the recruit interested in the program). In fact, it’s perhaps very similar to Pep Guardiola just mentioning the name of a player he likes, then said player and his agent will try to swindle a deal to Manchester City.
I have the upmost respect for the Schiano’s of the world, because of the level of planning and detail that goes into turning a program from a dud to a stud. In Schiano’s 2nd go around, Keith Sargeant of NJ.com wrote of his interview with the Athletic Director:
Brown (Board of Gov. Members) and Hobbs (Rutgers Athletic Director) met with Schiano in Columbus, Ohio, on Nov. 5. The five-and-a-half hour conversation was hardly a job interview. Schiano, armed with a binder that contained a 200-page blueprint, spelled out in painstaking detail what he believed he needed to win at Rutgers. Schiano came prepared with a scouting report of the team’s current roster and told the Rutgers contingent “things they didn’t even know” about what was going on behind the scenes in their program. He outlined what he needed to build a coaching staff and dropped names of potential assistants.
The man wasn’t even the coach of the team yet, but he was already armed with such detail! Talk about a first (or in his case 2nd impression)! But the reality is this kind of detail is necessary in modern times to bring any sort of sports program without competitive balance to the forefront. Rutgers began to fall flat on their face once Schiano left – and I’d put good money that it was due to the fact that his replacements Kyle Flood and Chris Ash either didn’t have the aptitude, drive, or patience to plan every detail out for a program’s success. With Schiano back at the helm for Rutgers – I envision better days ahead of them in college football.
So what do Greg Schiano and Rutgers have to do with the Percassi’s and Atalanta. They are essentially peas in a pod. Both have to fight off the whales of their respective sports for player personnel (but in Percassi’s case, it’s actually keeping players they’ve scouted and developed rather than recruited). They have less resources and capital at their disposal. And in modern times where name recognition carries much more weight than it should – both have to overcome direct rivals like Ohio State and Juventus who can sometimes wave a magic wand to get the players and staff that they want. And I think their definition of success and path to it is very similar – no shortcuts, excellent youth development, and not only developing footballers but respectable young men. Atalanta’s famed training facility in Zingonia is renowned not just for producing footballers for Atalanta, but developing men to become professionals regardless of the level – it has become a feeding tube for the entire footballing pyramid regardless of the tier.
A figure has been floating around the internet that Atalanta recently churned out a 54 million euro profit! That’s remarkable in normal times, but extraordinary in COVID times. Champion’s League money certainly helps, but even without the added bonus of European competition, Atalanta probably still would have been in the black, and there is nothing to suggest that team is headed for a downward spiral or major sell-off. The pieces have been set in place for Percassi and his staff to function appropriately, and not only delivered a sustainable football business, but one of the most competitive in Italy. From having the city of Bergamo rally around the team, to youth development, to international scouting, to constant tactical improvements; Percassi and company have been able to stave off competition that has larger annual debt accrual than Atalanta’s annual expenses.
The right combination of luck and skill is needed to realize such success, and fortunately for Atalanta they’ve won enough consecutive calculated gambles in a row that success in future consecutive years should not be as challenging to come by. Other teams are starting to follow suit, take a more patient approach, and develop a sense of organizational cohesion – both Sassuolo and Verona are now both punching above their weight, with the former having a good project in place that looks like it has staying power (still TBD on Verona given its cheapness). While you can call luck all day, that would be very short-sighted. It really does come down to hard-work and dedication to the cause. Just look back to the quote to understand the drive Schiano had to turn around a program that meant so much to him. And with the Percassi’s, who have actual skin in the game, they’ve shown that same grit and determination – and have surrounded themselves with individuals who personify similar character traits. When you’re handicapped by cash, building a perennial winner cannot be the goal. It is a continuous process, always trying to exploit the next inefficiency in the game. So when everyone catches on, you’re hopefully already one step ahead trying to figure out what to exploit next. It’s never-ending, plus it’s fun. Winning championships is great, but exploiting stale traditions, bucking trends, and realizing success with less resources is equally enjoyable and arguably more gratifying. Let’s hope the Percassi’s and Schiano’s of sport keep the course, because they are the new trailblazers capable of toppling the bloated heavyweights of the world, all while being competitive!
