At De Kuip in Rotterdam, Atalanta lost 2-1 to Feyenoord, lined up according to the published team sheets with Carnesecchi in goal and a back four in front of him. That is a sentence nobody has written in Bergamo for ten years, and it is worth reading for what it actually involves, well beyond the result of an early August friendly.
The change at a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Head coach | Maurizio Sarri, confirmed on 15 June 2026 |
| Predecessor | Raffaele Palladino, in charge from November 2025 |
| Historic system | Back three, since 2016 |
| New system | Back four, in a 4-3-3 shape |
| Last season | Seventh in Serie A with 59 points |
| Europe 2026-27 | Conference League |
| Test on 2 August | Feyenoord 2-1 Atalanta, De Kuip |
A decade with three centre-backs
The back three in Bergamo was never a formation choice. For a full decade it was the club’s grammar. It arrives with Gian Piero Gasperini in 2016, survives under Ivan Juric in the first half of 2025-26, and survives again under Raffaele Palladino, appointed on 11 November 2025 after Juric was dismissed with the side thirteenth on thirteen points from eleven games.
Palladino closed that season in seventh place on 59 points, with Conference League qualification, a Champions League round of 16 and a Coppa Italia semi-final. A notable recovery, but one built inside the structure the squad already knew.
Sarri, confirmed on 15 June 2026, is the first coach to take that structure apart.
The wing-back who becomes a full-back
The deepest individual shift concerns the wide defenders, and it is not a matter of positioning. It is a change of trade.
A wing-back in a back three has the entire flank in front of him. Defensively he has one principal reference, the opposing wide man, and the cover behind him is provided by the outside centre-back sliding across. Going forward his width is structural, because the team already has three players behind the ball and can afford two men very high on the touchlines.
A full-back in a back four does a different job. He must also defend the inside diagonal, the channel between himself and the centre-back, which is exactly the lane favoured by attackers who start wide and cut in. He has to judge when to step out to press and when to hold the line, because stepping out and missing opens a hole with nobody behind to close it. And in build-up he must choose between providing width and tucking inside, depending on where the winger in front of him sets up.
A player who has spent three seasons running up and down sixty metres with a single reference does not learn in three weeks to read an offside line alongside three other men.
From man-oriented marking to a line that slides
The second change concerns the centre-backs, and it goes deeper still.
Atalanta over the last decade built their defensive identity on a strongly man-oriented approach: each defender had a reference and followed him even out of his zone, accepting a broken line rather than leaving an opponent free. It is an aggressive mechanism that produces very high regains, and it demands quick defenders who are willing to play in open space.
A conventional back four works on the opposite idea. The priority is not the man but the distance between the four: they slide together, they compress together, and they accept leaving an opponent temporarily free far from the ball in order to keep their shape. The defender stops chasing and goes back to watching the ball.
Both are legitimate ways to defend, but they require opposite bodily habits. During the transition the risk is not tactical in the abstract: it is that in the same instant one defender steps out on his man while the three next to him hold the line. That is the moment when a team concedes the goal that looks inexplicable.
The deep playmaker who was not needed before
Then there is a role that does not exist in a 3-4-2-1 and is the pivot of everything in a 4-3-3.
In a midfield two the build-up is shared: the pair rotate, one receives and the other covers, and the first pass can leave from either of them. In a midfield three with a single holder the responsibility concentrates: one player has to stay on the axis, receive under pressure with the defensive line behind him and set the timing of every ball out.
It is no accident that Atalanta’s first summer signing was Gianluca Gaetano, or that in the early outings he has been used precisely in that position. Against Feyenoord the published line-up places him between Samardžić and Éderson, with Zappacosta and Ahanor on the outside of Scalvini and Djimsiti.
What a friendly can tell you
Very little about the result, quite a lot about the movements.
The 2-1 in Rotterdam was settled by a penalty on eleven minutes, Krstović’s equaliser at the end of the first half from a Scalvini assist, and Van Persie’s winner on eighty-one. Those are episodes, and in early August they count for what they count.
What a match like this does reveal is a different kind of information: how often the line stays level, how many balls escape the opposition press through the holding midfielder, how many times both wingers stand wide at the same moment as the full-backs and leave two players on the same vertical line, which is the classic error of a side still learning the system.
How long it takes
The honest answer is that nobody knows in advance, but there is an order of magnitude.
A coach’s principles travel fast: a few weeks of double sessions are enough to understand where he wants the ball and when he wants the team to step up. Automatisms are another matter, and they are built by repetition: the full-back’s timing when the winger receives, the coordinated shift after a switch of play, the shared read on when to push the line up are things learned by getting them wrong many times.
So the signal to look for in the opening league rounds is not the points tally. It is the frequency of positional errors in the situations that repeat every week. If it falls, the system is settling. If it is still flat in October, the problem is not time.
Data and information gathered from public sources: official club communications, published line-ups and match reports, league table archives, national and local sports press.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Atalanta's head coach for the 2026-27 season?
Maurizio Sarri, confirmed on 15 June 2026. He replaced Raffaele Palladino, who had led the side from November 2025 to the end of the previous season.
How long had Atalanta been playing with a back three?
Since 2016, the year Gian Piero Gasperini arrived. The back three survived him too, under Ivan Juric and then under Raffaele Palladino in 2025-26. That is a decade of continuity on a structural principle.
What changes for a wing-back who becomes a full-back?
The area he is responsible for changes. A wing-back has the whole flank in front of him and one main attacking reference to track. A full-back has less ground to cover going forward but must also defend the inside diagonal and the space behind the centre-back. It is a different job under the same positional label.
How did the Feyenoord friendly end?
Feyenoord 2-1 Atalanta at De Kuip in Rotterdam on 2 August 2026. Ueda scored from the spot on 11 minutes, Krstović equalised at the end of the first half from a Scalvini assist, and Van Persie settled it on 81 minutes.
How long does it take to change system?
Far longer than a pre-season. Principles can be transmitted in a few weeks, automatisms settle through repetition over months. The first useful signal is not friendly results but a falling rate of positional errors in repeating situations.
