PICTURE THE AVERAGE FOOTBALLER on a day off and you might imagine marathon PlayStation sessions or hours spent poring over social media. Not so Mattia Caldara. The Atalanta defender stands out from his peers by pursuing a rare interest for the modern player: reading.
“After graduating from high school I stayed a year longer with the [Atalanta] youth team as an over-age player here in Bergamo,” he says. “And honestly, because I only had training sessions in the afternoon, I felt the need to ‘complete’ myself, because reading is one thing and studying for school is another. I didn't want to waste the free time I had and reading helped me a lot. Then I realised that every book enriched me in some way and opened my mind.”
That passion has stayed with him ever since, in a career that has brought the 26-year-old a pair of Italy caps and a Champions League debut last season, when he helped newcomers Atalanta reach the quarter-finals. Gian Piero Gasperini’s side were ultimately thwarted by a late Paris Saint-Germain comeback in Lisbon, but hopefully Caldara’s soft spot for Russian writers prepared him for life’s crueller outcomes.
PICTURE THE AVERAGE FOOTBALLER on a day off and you might imagine marathon PlayStation sessions or hours spent poring over social media. Not so Mattia Caldara. The Atalanta defender stands out from his peers by pursuing a rare interest for the modern player: reading.
“After graduating from high school I stayed a year longer with the [Atalanta] youth team as an over-age player here in Bergamo,” he says. “And honestly, because I only had training sessions in the afternoon, I felt the need to ‘complete’ myself, because reading is one thing and studying for school is another. I didn't want to waste the free time I had and reading helped me a lot. Then I realised that every book enriched me in some way and opened my mind.”
That passion has stayed with him ever since, in a career that has brought the 26-year-old a pair of Italy caps and a Champions League debut last season, when he helped newcomers Atalanta reach the quarter-finals. Gian Piero Gasperini’s side were ultimately thwarted by a late Paris Saint-Germain comeback in Lisbon, but hopefully Caldara’s soft spot for Russian writers prepared him for life’s crueller outcomes.
“My favourite book is Crime and Punishment because it taught me more than any other,” he says of the 19th-century Fyodor Dostoevsky classic. “There are certain passages that taught me... maybe not how to live, but to see certain situations in a different way. So it changed me a lot.”
More recently, Caldara has been exploring the work of German-American author Charles Bukowski. But although the centre-back was once nicknamed The Poet by former Atalanta team-mate Andrea Petagna, he has no plans to take up writing himself. “To be honest, the essays I wrote in my Italian classes were not exactly great. But never say never, it could happen one day!”
PICTURE THE AVERAGE FOOTBALLER on a day off and you might imagine marathon PlayStation sessions or hours spent poring over social media. Not so Mattia Caldara. The Atalanta defender stands out from his peers by pursuing a rare interest for the modern player: reading.
“After graduating from high school I stayed a year longer with the [Atalanta] youth team as an over-age player here in Bergamo,” he says. “And honestly, because I only had training sessions in the afternoon, I felt the need to ‘complete’ myself, because reading is one thing and studying for school is another. I didn't want to waste the free time I had and reading helped me a lot. Then I realised that every book enriched me in some way and opened my mind.”
That passion has stayed with him ever since, in a career that has brought the 26-year-old a pair of Italy caps and a Champions League debut last season, when he helped newcomers Atalanta reach the quarter-finals. Gian Piero Gasperini’s side were ultimately thwarted by a late Paris Saint-Germain comeback in Lisbon, but hopefully Caldara’s soft spot for Russian writers prepared him for life’s crueller outcomes.
PICTURE THE AVERAGE FOOTBALLER on a day off and you might imagine marathon PlayStation sessions or hours spent poring over social media. Not so Mattia Caldara. The Atalanta defender stands out from his peers by pursuing a rare interest for the modern player: reading.
“After graduating from high school I stayed a year longer with the [Atalanta] youth team as an over-age player here in Bergamo,” he says. “And honestly, because I only had training sessions in the afternoon, I felt the need to ‘complete’ myself, because reading is one thing and studying for school is another. I didn't want to waste the free time I had and reading helped me a lot. Then I realised that every book enriched me in some way and opened my mind.”
That passion has stayed with him ever since, in a career that has brought the 26-year-old a pair of Italy caps and a Champions League debut last season, when he helped newcomers Atalanta reach the quarter-finals. Gian Piero Gasperini’s side were ultimately thwarted by a late Paris Saint-Germain comeback in Lisbon, but hopefully Caldara’s soft spot for Russian writers prepared him for life’s crueller outcomes.
PICTURE THE AVERAGE FOOTBALLER on a day off and you might imagine marathon PlayStation sessions or hours spent poring over social media. Not so Mattia Caldara. The Atalanta defender stands out from his peers by pursuing a rare interest for the modern player: reading.
“After graduating from high school I stayed a year longer with the [Atalanta] youth team as an over-age player here in Bergamo,” he says. “And honestly, because I only had training sessions in the afternoon, I felt the need to ‘complete’ myself, because reading is one thing and studying for school is another. I didn't want to waste the free time I had and reading helped me a lot. Then I realised that every book enriched me in some way and opened my mind.”
That passion has stayed with him ever since, in a career that has brought the 26-year-old a pair of Italy caps and a Champions League debut last season, when he helped newcomers Atalanta reach the quarter-finals. Gian Piero Gasperini’s side were ultimately thwarted by a late Paris Saint-Germain comeback in Lisbon, but hopefully Caldara’s soft spot for Russian writers prepared him for life’s crueller outcomes.
“My favourite book is Crime and Punishment because it taught me more than any other,” he says of the 19th-century Fyodor Dostoevsky classic. “There are certain passages that taught me... maybe not how to live, but to see certain situations in a different way. So it changed me a lot.”
More recently, Caldara has been exploring the work of German-American author Charles Bukowski. But although the centre-back was once nicknamed The Poet by former Atalanta team-mate Andrea Petagna, he has no plans to take up writing himself. “To be honest, the essays I wrote in my Italian classes were not exactly great. But never say never, it could happen one day!”
PICTURE THE AVERAGE FOOTBALLER on a day off and you might imagine marathon PlayStation sessions or hours spent poring over social media. Not so Mattia Caldara. The Atalanta defender stands out from his peers by pursuing a rare interest for the modern player: reading.
“After graduating from high school I stayed a year longer with the [Atalanta] youth team as an over-age player here in Bergamo,” he says. “And honestly, because I only had training sessions in the afternoon, I felt the need to ‘complete’ myself, because reading is one thing and studying for school is another. I didn't want to waste the free time I had and reading helped me a lot. Then I realised that every book enriched me in some way and opened my mind.”
That passion has stayed with him ever since, in a career that has brought the 26-year-old a pair of Italy caps and a Champions League debut last season, when he helped newcomers Atalanta reach the quarter-finals. Gian Piero Gasperini’s side were ultimately thwarted by a late Paris Saint-Germain comeback in Lisbon, but hopefully Caldara’s soft spot for Russian writers prepared him for life’s crueller outcomes.
