Atalanta v Paris Saint-Germain: Can Serie A side spring a surprise against Champions League hopefuls PSG?

The Serie A side are, by some distance, the lowest calibre club left in the competition, but Gian Piero Gasperini’s side could prove to be the slipperiest of banana skins for the French giants.

Indeed, there’s an argument to be made that Atalanta were Italy’s strongest team at the time of the conclusion of the 2019/20 Serie A season.

They might have finished on a defeat to Inter, but before that came an 17-match unbeaten run which included a nine-match winning streak. Atalanta were, for a period, unstoppable.

• Mario's the man for Atalanta

The rise of Atalanta has been one of Serie A’s defining storylines over the last two seasons, with Gasperini harnessing a group of talented young players and building something that amounts to far more than the sum of their parts.

While Atalanta’s rise might be mysterious to some, with the club operating on a budget far below that of their rivals, their success is no fluke or flash in the pan.

Atalanta are a tactically complex outfit, which means Thomas Tuchel and his players will have to do their homework before Wednesday’s Champions League quarter final clash. Gasperini has a true grasp of the mechanisms of the sport and is capable of switching between a number of approaches and formations, although a back three tends to be a constant throughout.

It’s an attack where Atalanta’s players have thrived most. Josip Ilicic, Luis Muriel and Duvan Zapata scored 51 Serie A goals between them this season, with Papu Gomez the creative force behind them with 16 assists over the course of the 2019/20 campaign.