Atalanta gives the surprise of the Europa League matchday by defeating Liverpool 0-3 at Anfield. It is the first defeat for Klopp’s team in their fiefdom since February 22, 2023 in that 2-5 against Real Madrid in the Champions League. Scamacca’s double is the first by a visiting player in the Reds’ stadium since Benzema and Vinícius did it that day with Madrid. The third and final goal was scored by Pasalic.
It is the second time that La Dea visits Anfield and the second time that it conquers it with a victory. In the group stage of the Champions League of the 2020/21 season, the team led by Gasperini won 0-2. Today they have even improved the result, paving the way to a semi-final that would be the first in the history of the Italian club.
Jürgen Klopp proposed an eleven with many variants in the ‘reds’, leaving some of his most important players on the bench thinking about the tough race for the Premier League that he is competing with Arsenal and Manchester City. Salah, Luis Díaz or Robertson did not start from the start. By half-time the German coach had already regretted it and made a triple substitution to bring on the Egyptian, the left back and Szoboszlai.
With this victory, Serie A virtually has five places in the Champions League for the next campaign thanks to the system that grants an extra place taking into account the performance of each country’s teams in European competitions. Atalanta will have to defend the result in Bergamo, but it certainly couldn’t be better for the Italians.
The DEA managed to surprise Liverpool already in the first 45 minutes. At the beginning of the match Pasalic had the score at 0-1, but he crashed his shot in the six-yard box into the face of a Kelleher who would later be the protagonist.
Liverpool were able to go ahead with a one-on-one from Darwin Núñez, who wasted it trying to chip over Musso. The Uruguayan was not precise and his shot did not even hit the goal. A few minutes later, Harvey Elliot tried with a spectacular shot from the right corner of the area, but his shot found first the crossbar and then the left post of the Italian team’s goal.
Just in the last play of the first half Koopmeiners stood alone in front of the Liverpool goalkeeper. The Dutchman took a long time to decide and Kelleher closed the spaces well to cover the shot with his body. The Italian team was very close to going 0-2 at halftime.
In the second half, Scamacca scored the second on the hour mark from a pass from De Ketelaere just when Liverpool were playing better. The third and final one was the work of Pasalic who took advantage of a rebound that the local goalkeeper left dead in the six-yard box to close a historic match for Atalanta.
The team led by Van Dijk had a really bad second half, in which they barely endangered the Italian defense. Only a goal disallowed for Salah due to a tight offside caused a scare in the body of Dea, who withstood the local attempts very well.