Atalanta played 7th placed Roma at their home in their 32nd match of the league. Gasperini started with Ilicic and Zapata and on the front with Luis Muriel on the bench. Atalanta played with much fluidity in the first half. In the first few minutes, Zapata and Ilicic were provided with amazing through balls by Ruslan Malinovskiy but both failed to hit the back of the net.
Ruslan Malinovskiy then took the responsibility himself and scored for the club in the 25th minute, courtesy, an accurate pass by Gosens in the box. Atalanta kept on pressing and Roma seemed to have no answer in response. Luis Muriel was brought in the second half as a substitute for Ilicic. He was provided with an inch-perfect pass by Zapata near the 6-yard box but he failed to register a goal.
Atalanta could have been easily 2 goals ahead of Roma but it just wasn’t their day. Roma was quick to reply and started pressing themselves after Muriel’s miss. Veretout took the ball forward from the middle block of the field but was fouled by Gosens in the 69TH minute. Gosens who was already on a yellow card was given another one and that was it for the German on the pitch.
Roma was now on the front foot with 11 players on the pitch in comparison to 10 of Atalanta. In the 75th minute mark, Cristante out of nowhere hit a bullet of a shot from 30 yards out and scored an absolute stunner, Roma 1 Atalanta 1. Dzeko after a couple of minutes had a great chance to turn the game around completely for the home side but he hit the ball straight at the goalkeeper instead.
The action was not yet over as Ibanez made a foul on Freuler in the extra time and was shown a 2nd second yellow and both sides ended up with 10 men on the pitch. Muriel took the free-kick but he fired it way off the target. The game ended in a 1-1 draw with both sides taking a point each.
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