OPINION: Going under the radar, Gasperini's Atalanta are one of the teams of the season

Back in 2016, Atalanta were the team everybody was talking about. They'd been a mid-table outfit since gaining promotion back to Serie A in 2011 but were now fighting for European football in their first campaign under Gasperini.

They won that fight, qualifying for the Europa League, and then established themselves as one of Italy's best with three third-place finishes from 2019 to 2021, all the while playing some of the most exciting football in the country. 

The Bergamo side then took a step backwards in the 2021/22 campaign, finishing eighth in the league, and such is the fickle and fast-moving nature of the sport, they were quickly cast aside by the footballing world, who found a shiny new toy to dote on 200-odd kilometres further south in the form of Bologna.

What Thiago Motta and his players are doing there is undoubtedly remarkable but, out of the spotlight, Gasperini and his are enjoying an equally as good if not better season.

First of all, there's their league campaign, which could well see them return to the Champions League after two years away from Europe's premier competition.

It looked unlikely that would be the case at the turn of the year after a fairly mediocre first half of the season, but things have really clicked for them since then. 

They went unbeaten in their first seven matches of 2024, winning five and drawing away to AC Milan and Roma. They scored 19 goals in the process, producing the aggressive high-tempo football that had made the world fall in love with them all those years ago.

Perhaps the highlight was a dominant 3-1 win against Lazio, in which they didn't face a single shot on target from open play and could have quite easily scored more

While the results haven't been quite as good since the end of February - although they did claim a stunning 3-0 win away to Napoli - only Inter have scored more goals than them this calendar year, and Champions League qualification is now in their own hands with Roma only two points ahead in fifth - which is now a CL spot - having played a match more.

Even so, looking at the league table alone, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's been a fairly unspectacular season for La Dea, but that changes when you look at what they've done in cup competitions.

They've made it to the Coppa Italia final for the third time in six seasons and have navigated two extremely tricky ties to get there.

In the quarter-finals, they were pitted against AC Milan away from home and headed into the game very much the underdogs but fought back from 1-0 to win 2-1 and set up a semi-final clash with an in-form Fiorentina side. La Viola dominated the first leg and were unlucky to only win it 1-0, but Gasperini's men responded in style, scoring three late goals in the second to secure a deserved 4-1 victory.

It's in the Europa League where they've really shown just how good a side they are, with them coming up against elite opposition on five occasions and not losing once.

They faced Sporting - a side that, like Bologna, is being worshipped by football hipsters everywhere this season - twice in the group stages and battled to a 2-1 win in Lisbon before securing the draw they needed in Bergamo to claim top spot ahead of Ruben Amorim's side.

They were then drawn against the Portuguese club again in the round of 16 and Gasperini confirmed that he had the measure of one of the world's most highly-rated young managers. The Italians were the better team in both legs and secured a 3-2 aggregate victory that took them to the competition's quarter-finals for the first time.

Nobody expected them to go any further given they were drawn against Liverpool, but they then stunned the world by storming to a 3-0 win at Anfield and comfortably saw out the tie on home turf, never giving Jurgen Klopp's side any real hope of pulling off a comeback after conceding an early opener.

Atalanta face Marseille in the Europa League semi-finals with the first leg on Thursday, May 2nd.

Given he's gotten the better of one manager widely considered to be one of the best in the world in Klopp and another so highly rated that many feel he should be replacing the German in Amorim, it's hard not to feel that Gasperini isn't being spoken about nearly enough, especially given he's claimed those victories with some genuinely entertaining football.

The fact he's only managed one major club in his career - Inter - and it was a disastrous spell, with the Italian being sacked after five matches, goes some way to explaining that. However, Amorim, Arne Slot, Motta and Roberto de Zerbi have never managed at the highest of levels either and yet they've all been of huge interest to footballing giants; Slot is set to take over at Liverpool and the other three are likely to get big moves of their own sooner rather than later.

The 66-year-old's age is undoubtedly a factor but compatriot Carlo Ancelotti has shown that older managers are still capable of adapting and evolving even at the very top of the game.

Ultimately though, Atalanta won't be complaining one bit about the spotlight leaving them and their boss as the club now firmly under it, Bologna, seem set to lose their manager and star player, Joshua Zirkzee, to one of the Italian superpowers.

While Bologna reluctantly prepare for life without their biggest assets, the Bergamo club can head into the final few weeks of the season fully focused on winning their first major trophy since 1963 and their manager's first-ever, safe in the knowledge that they'll most likely be holding onto him and most of their key players afterwards.

In an era where the most hyped-up sides are quickly picked apart by those bigger than them, under the radar is perhaps the place to be.