26 May 2019: the UCL dream is reality

Shut your eyes and make a wish. Because the night of May 26 is the night when also dreams come true. It is the night when tears embrace the rain and those have never been so beautiful. It is the night when space and time no longer exist, and a stadium two hundred kilometres away can be black-and-blue coloured and history is written.

Exactly one year ago the goals of Duván Zapata, Papu Gomez and SuperMario Pašalić opened the doors of the most important Europe and launched that music that will then accompany other magical evenings. Those notes that night were the soundtrack of the dream that had come true: Atalanta in the Champions League.

One night that no one can ever forget, those who were there that evening at the Mapei Stadium in Reggio Emilia and they were over twenty thousand, and those who cheered, suffered, rejoiced and finally cried in front of the TV. With Sassuolo's lead freezing the blood, the draw of Duván before half time gave courage, the captain's signature and SuperMario's stamp that gave the party in the second half and tears of all the protagonists of this fairy tale, no one excluded, from President Percassi's emotion hugging his children, to Gasperini's carried in triumph by his lads, up to the emotion (we mention one for all) of Dorino who has been taking care of the team's material for a lifetime and had been waiting for a night like this since ever and perhaps dared not even dream of it, and of course to the joy of all the Atalantini hearts that pushed and fed the ride with their support and their "crazy endless love".

The rest is recent history, with chapters still to be written and discovered, but always with an indelible memory of that night a year ago.

THE ROAD TO THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

From 4-0 over Frosinone who opened the campaign in August to 3-1 at Sassuolo in late May which instead opened the doors to the first historic UEFA Champions League qualification. The first and last of the twenty wins that marked the course and the ride: 69 points at the end, third place and best finish ever in Serie A which joined another established record, the 77 goals scored (best attack of the competition). A championship characterized by the many away achievement, ten, one above all, the most significant to feed the Champions dream, the comeback at the end of April at the San Paolo against Napoli. A good final streak of thirteen games, with five wins in the last six, built the dream step by step, until the night in Reggio Emilia which put the closing credits to one of the best seasons in the club's history.