Retro Atalanta Shirt – La Dea's Black and Blue Legacy

Atalanta Bergamasca Calcio was founded on 17 October 1907 by a group of students at the Collegio Sarpi in Bergamo, making them one of the older clubs in Italian football. In their early decades, the club competed in the regional divisions that characterised Italian football before the formation of the national league structure.

The club won their first Coppa Italia in 1963, defeating Torino in the final – a landmark moment that cemented their place in Italian football history. They would add a second Coppa Italia title in 1987, defeating Napoli, providing one of the great upsets of that era given Napoli had Diego Maradona in his prime.

Atlanta's Serie A history is a tale of yo-yo resilience. They have suffered multiple relegations to Serie B, only to bounce back with conviction each time. Yet they have never been a yo-yo club in spirit – their identity is rooted in fighting, in defying expectation, in taking on the grandes and making them uncomfortable.

The club's greatest modern chapter began when Gian Piero Gasperini arrived in 2016. What followed was nothing short of a football miracle. In the 2018–19 season, Atalanta finished third in Serie A and qualified for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in their history. Their debut campaign in Europe's premier club competition was staggering – they reached the quarter-finals, defeating Valencia 8–4 on aggregate in one of the most extraordinary two-legged ties in Champions League history.

They narrowly missed out on the semi-final, losing to Paris Saint-Germain in heartbreaking fashion in the final moments of extra time. But the damage – if one can call it that – was done: Atalanta were now a name feared across the continent.

In subsequent seasons, they continued to qualify for European competition and push the boundaries of what a club of their size and resources could achieve. The 2023–24 season delivered the ultimate prize when Atalanta won the UEFA Europa League, defeating Bayer Leverkusen in the final in Dublin – an unbeaten Leverkusen side that had swept through German football. It was one of the most stunning upsets in recent European football history, and a moment of pure, unbridled joy for the people of Bergamo.

Atalanta's history is studded with players who brought flair, power, and technical brilliance to the black and blue stripes.

In the earlier eras, striker Cesare Prandelli – who would later manage the Italian national team – was a product of the Atalanta youth system, as was goalkeeper Dino Zoff in the very early stages of his legendary career before moving on to greater things. Midfielder Gaetano Scirea, one of Italy's greatest ever defenders, had early connections to the club.

In more recent times, the list of players who have passed through Bergamo reads like a who's who of Serie A talent. Luca Toni, the towering striker and World Cup winner, played for Atalanta early in his career. Franck Kessié, now a Champions League winner with AC Milan, honed his craft in Bergamo. Papu Gómez – Alejandro Darío Gómez – became the cult hero of the Gasperini era, a creative, energetic playmaker who captained the side through their Champions League adventure before a painful departure to Sevilla in January 2021.

Duván Zapata became one of Serie A's most feared strikers during his time at Atalanta, a physical powerhouse with devastating finishing ability. Josip Iličić provided moments of pure genius, none more so than his extraordinary four-goal performance against Valencia in the Champions League.

Under Gasperini, the collective has always mattered more than any individual – but players like Hans Hateboer, Robin Gosens, Remo Freuler, and Marten de Roon became cult figures for their relentless pressing and work rate. More recently, Ademola Lookman, Gianluca Scamacca, and Mateo Retegui have carried the torch forward.

The Atalanta retro shirt is one of the most visually distinctive in Italian football. The club's traditional colours – black and blue vertical stripes – are iconic on the Serie A landscape, and have remained broadly consistent throughout the club's history, creating a visual thread that connects generations of supporters.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Atalanta kits carried the clean, bold stripe designs typical of the era, with sponsors Promosport and later others lending their names to classic designs that collectors now prize highly. The simplicity of those shirts – thick stripes, minimal branding, the distinctive Atalanta badge with its stylised goddess figure – gives them a timeless quality.

The 1987 Coppa Italia-winning shirt is among the most sought-after pieces in Atalanta's catalogue – a clean, bold black and blue design from a season of genuine triumph. Shirts from the 1990s carry that decade's characteristic tightness of cut and bolder sponsor placement, yet retain the fundamental elegance of the club's colours.

The kits from the Champions League era – 2019 to 2022 – have already achieved a kind of cult status among younger collectors, representing the moment Atalanta announced themselves to Europe. The Europa League-winning 2023–24 shirts are certain to become collector's items as the years pass.

Alternate and third kits have occasionally featured white or orange, giving collectors additional variants to seek out beyond the primary black and blue.