Rome (AFP)
Roma deprived its host Atalanta of removing Milan from the runner-up, albeit temporarily, by defeating it for the first time since 2017, with a humiliating result 4-1 thanks to three English goals in the eighteenth stage of the Italian Football League.
The opportunity existed for Atalanta to rise to second place and put Milan under pressure before the expected meeting between the latter and Napoli on Sunday, if he succeeded in achieving his seventh victory in a row and the twelfth of the season.
But Roma stunned him on Saturday in his stronghold, and achieved their first victory over the representative of Bergamo since they beat him at home also 1-0 in August 2017, adding to his third defeat of the season.
The irony is that the three defeats that coach Gian Piero Gasperini’s team suffered were in his stadium, first against Fiorentina 1-2 in the third stage and then against Milan 2-3 in the seventh stage.
With this defeat, which Roma rehabilitated, after losing by the same result on his last visit to this stadium on December 20, 2020, led by another Portuguese coach, Paulo Fonseca, Atalanta is 6 points behind Inter, the leaders, who defeated Salernitana 5-0, before their last match. This year, Tuesday, in Genoa, while Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho’s team raised its score to 31 points and became temporary fifth at the expense of Fiorentina, which hosts Sassuolo on Sunday.
And he hit Rome early, after he advanced with a goal a minute before the start through the Englishman Tammy Abraham, then added a second in the 27th minute through Nicolo Zaniolo after a quick counter-attack and a pass from the French Jordan Vertuo.
Coach Janiero Gasperini tried to rectify the situation, throwing the Colombian Luis Muriel in the 34th minute instead of the Albanian Berat Degemste, and he was correct in his decision, as Muriel succeeded in returning his team to the atmosphere of the meeting in the last seconds of the first half with a shot that turned from Roma midfielder Brian Cristante, and deceived his goalkeeper. Portuguese Rui Patricio, before the whistle of the end of the first half.
After the referee canceled a goal in the 69th minute for offending Argentine Jose Luis Palompino after the ruling on the video assistant referee (VAR), Atalanta’s matters became very complicated, after they conceded a third goal scored by England’s Chris Smalling after a free kick in the 72nd minute.
According to Opta statistics, this is the first time in the history of the Italian League that two English players have scored in one match.
And things did not end here, with another quick counter-attack and a crucial pass from Vertu, Roma dealt the final blow to its host by adding the fourth and second goal personally to Abraham in the 82nd minute.
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