Gianpaolo Bellini squatted down before the Curva Nord and wiped away the tears with his thumb and forefinger. It was his last goodbye. Atalanta’s ultras had prepared a special choreography for their captain. A huge replica of his No.6 shirt was unfurled in the stands followed by a great big Panini sticker of the veteran with the city of Bergamo as a backdrop. “Thanks Gianpaolo,” it read.
But the day wasn’t all about him. As Bellini contemplated beginning a new chapter of his career, moving upstairs to take a desk-job after 18 years as a player with Atalanta, the ultras were aware that the club would be needing a new captain. A banner revealed their preference for Marten de Roon to tie the armband around his bicep. “De Roon,” it explained, “you are Strömberg’s natural heir, there is no other shirt you can wear.”
There is no higher compliment for a foreign player at Atalanta than to be compared with Glenn Peter Strömberg. The Swede spent eight years at the club and was a member of the team that reached the semi-finals of the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1988. When Strömberg isn’t busy commentating on the Premier League, Champions League and the Euros for Swedish TV, he returns to Bergamo where he still lives with his family, eight cats, dog and tortoise.
To earn that level of respect from Atalanta supporters after only a year in their colours was a measure of how much De Roon had done in his first season at the Stadio Atleti Azzurri d’Italia. The boy picked up from Heerenveen for just €1.25m had managed to seduce la Dea and make her fall madly in love with him like few others.
Talk of captaining the club began in March. “It would be an honor,” De Roon told Il Corriere della Sera’s Bergamo edition. “I want to stay. It would be a wonderful recognition [of everything I have done at Atalanta]… For now though it’s too soon. I don’t know the language well enough and there are other players like Cigarini who understand the club and the city better. They deserve it. Not me.”
One of the reasons Atalanta fans took so well to De Roon was because his style of play embodied the spirit of Bergamo. It is known as the Città dei Mille or City of the Thousand in honour of the 180 young volunteers who left the town in 1860 to join Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Expedition of the Thousand and fight in the campaign that culminated in the unification of Italy. Proudly blue collar as well, the Bergamaschi value hard work, grit and determination above everything else. To watch De Roon was to see one of them on the pitch.
When a Dutch TV crew travelled to Italy to do a feature on him, the title of it ‘The Bulldog of Bergamo’ soon became his nickname. “On the pitch, something clicks,” De Roon told them. “I become a different person. I enjoy standing on someone’s toe every now and again or whispering in someone’s ear if they do something wrong or miss a chance.” He relishes the physical battle. “Sometimes I go up against really talented players,” De Roon added, “so you've got to keep on top of them to throw them off their game a bit.”
Atalanta were the most aggressive team in Serie A last season. They were shown a league high 14 red cards, six of which were straight reds. De Roon was responsible for one of them, a second bookable offence in April against Torino. But he isn’t a bad boy. “I would never intentionally injure anyone or go in with two legs or tackle dirty. I play tough but fair, I keep it within the rules of the game.”
De Roon led the league in tackles last season (121) and was second only to Francesco Acerbi (139) for interceptions (132). “He's extraordinary,” his manager Edy Reja told Il Corriere dello Sport. “He isn't very gifted from a technical point of view, but he has improved a lot in his combination play.”
A revelation in Serie A, De Roon soon attracted interest from Italy's biggest clubs. Napoli were said to have first refusal, at least verbally, not in writing. “He'd do well in front of the defence next to Jorginho,” Reja opined. Lazio also got in touch with Atalanta about him. In the end, Middlesbrough acted more decisively and the inconvenient truth for many Serie A clubs at the moment is that if you get into an auction with one from the Premier League, even a newly promoted team, there is only going to be one winner.
De Roon has made Atalanta a big profit, but Boro have also got value for money. He is 25 and it's not hard to imagine him soon being capped for Holland. In fact, it's a surprise to fans of Atalanta that he is still waiting for one. They will miss him. The sight of De Roon joining in with some of the locals for a kickabout in Bergamo's Piazza Vecchia brought them a lot of pleasure. Not many players take the time to do that, but as Boro will soon discover, de Roon is not just any player.
Will Marten de Roon prove to be a success following his move to Middlesbrough? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below
