Atalanta held on to 3rd place in Serie A on Sunday after beating high-flying Bologna 2-0 to recharge their bid for Champions League soccer subsequent season.
Gian Piero Gasperini’s aspect are 4 factors above Bologna, who’re fifth, because of a third-minute tap-in from Mateo Retegui and Mario Pasalic’s first league aim since November not lengthy afterward.
Retegui’s early strike was his twenty sixth of the season in all competitions for Atalanta, and the Italian ahead additionally arrange Pasalic to information house a fragile volley together with his sensible cross within the twenty first minute.
Those objectives ended a three-match shedding run with out scoring for Atalanta and have been their first in a house league fixture because the begin of February.
“I’m happy because it had been a few months that we’d not won here, we need to make our home matches count in the final weeks of the season,” stated Pasalic.
“Scoring straight away really helped us because it gives you more freedom to play.”
Atalanta got here into Sunday’s key conflict with a top-four rival and not using a Serie A win in Bergamo since earlier than Christmas, however they stopped the house rot with a mature efficiency on the Gewiss Stadium.
Bologna regarded to have the initiative in a good battle for 2 Champions League spots, with Inter and Napoli contesting the league title and nearly assured qualification.
Vincenzo Italiano’s crew had received 5 of their earlier six matches and have been unfortunate to solely draw with second-placed Napoli final weekend.
The solely detrimental word for Gasperini was seeing defender Sead Kolasinac being stretchered off with a knee damage simply earlier than halftime, the most recent in a protracted line of bodily issues for each the Bosnian and Atalanta this time period.
Source: www.dailysabah.com