Atalanta take big step towards first Champions League

The Champions League is a reality. Atalanta beat Genoa on Saturday, in the match that opened the thirty-sixth day of Serie A, and, with its fourth consecutive victory, marched towards a historic classification to the contest.       The goals of Musa Barrow and Timothy Castagne allowed the Atalanta will be momentarily with the third position occupied by Inter Milan, which will play on Monday against Chievo, and escape to six points from Rome and Milan, fifth, who still must play their games. Rome will welcome Juventus and Milan will visit Fiorentina , and only have the victory as an option if they want to try to reach an Atalanta who sees, day after day, approaching a classification in the Champions League that at the beginning of the year seemed like a dream.
Without Argentine Alejandro Gomez and Andrea Masiello, both sanctioned, Atalanta did not play with his usual high tempo in the first half, in which however he was correctly nullified two goals, one to the German Robin Gosens and another to the Colombian Duván Zapata. But his start of resumption was overwhelming. The technician Giampiero Gasperini gave way to Barrow and he rewarded him in less than sixty seconds, to overcome in a hand to hand the Romanian goal Ionut Radu and break the equality.

The goal of the Gambia striker, who had to retire by injury just fifteen minutes later, opened the way for the 2-0 of Castagne, who culminated a great choral action to sentence the encounter. Gasperini’s men controlled the pace in the final stretch, but had to be scared in the added time, since the Macedonian Goran Pandev cut distances in 88 and the visitor finished giving everything in the last minutes, without having a prize.