La Maglia Sudata Sempre: TCD and New Balance take Bergamo
In the players’ tunnel at the New Balance Arena, the phrase Atalanta è Bergamo e Bergamo è Atalanta is proudly emblazoned on the wall. Atalanta B.C., an entity indistinguishable from the Lombard city of Bergamo it calls home, represents a great contradiction. It is at once both a club for idealists and realists, for scholars and industrial workers, for the past and the present. Vast swathes of green pastures and agricultural land sit side by side with factories in the heartland of Lombardian industry and innovation. The city is even founded on a geographic duality: between Città Bassa and Città Alta — the lower and upper city.
The New Balance Arena eloquently displays those contradictions.
The legacy of the club’s earliest origins remains as both Tribunas retain the original stadium architecture, built in the late 1920’s, while the Curvas have been given modern facelifts. It’s a powerful but delicate transformation, one that befits a club that has established itself as one of Italy’s finest.
We spent the weekend in Bergamo with New Balance, soaking up the atmosphere of a city that never lets you forget where you are.
In partnering with New Balance at the start of this season, La Dea found a partner capable of understanding the importance of tradition and custom in football. It’s a coalition rooted in a shared vision for what football should be: a living, breathing manifestation of longstanding community power.
La Maglia Sudata Sempre. The shirt always sweats. It’s a stamp of approval in the collar of every Atalanta jersey, and a rallying cry that encapsulates the essence of the hard-working and spirited Bergamaschi. It is both an expectation and a reward. A burden and a badge of honour.
The visit of Como 1907, a regional derby, was the perfect backdrop to a chaotic 1-1 draw. A relentless Curva Nord added a ferocious edge.
