The matchup between French champions Paris Saint-Germain and Italian Cinderella story Atalanta is one of the few true David vs. Goliath tales in the Champions League history.
PSG has spent a whopping $392.7 million dollars combined in the transfers of Neymar Jr. and Kylian Mbappé within the past three years than Atalanta has in its whole squad through the last 19 years — a mere $385.3 million for the better part of two decades.
PSG spent more on Neymar and Mbappe than Atalanta have spent on their entire squad since 2001-02 😳 pic.twitter.com/CWKjBypiG1
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) August 12, 2020
According to Transfermarkt, PSG spent a whopping $148.5 million for Kylian Mbappé's transfer from Monaco in 2018 and an even steeper $244.2 million for Neymar Jr. as he moved on from Spanish supergiant Barcelona in 2017.
Meanwhile, Atalanta has managed to thrive all season long against teams with much deeper pockets without needing to spend remotely as much as the French side has since being taken over by new investors earlier in the decade.
In contrast, the Bergamo side spent a mere $4.92 million for Serie A's assist wizard Papu Gómez to pull him from Metalist in Ukraine and an affordable $6.33 million for striker Josip Ilicic back in 2018.
Other acquisitions like Marten de Roon ($14.85 million) were a little more costly, but even he cost only a tenth of what Kylian Mbappé and 16 times less what PSG had to pay to reel in Neymar Jr. from Barcelona.
This only serves as a reminder that world football is more than superstar players, but also the development of a sound, structured team with excellent chemistry — something Atalanta has managed to show all year long throughout the UEFA Champions League.
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