11th April, 2024
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
Liverpool’s bid to win the Europa League suffers a setback on Thursday as they were thrashed 0-3 by Italian side, Atalanta at Anfield in the first leg of their quarter-final encounter.
The visitors shocked everyone to get one of their best results away from home and against one of Europe’s football giants.
Gianluca Scamacca was the hero as he grabbed a brace in the encounter, while Mario Pasalic got the third goal.
Scamacca opened the scoring for Atalanta 38 minutes into the game. Davide Zappacosta played a long ball to him and he cut inside and unleashed a screamer into the bottom right corner.
Scamacca doubled Atalanta’s lead in the 60th minute. Charles De Ketelaere put a cross into the box and found Scamacca, who latched on to it and struck the ball into the bottom left corner of the post.
Mohamed Salah put the ball inside the net in the 79th minute, but he had no time to celebrate as the referee disallowed the goal for offside.
Seven minutes to the end of the match, Ederson darted into the penalty area to latch on to a pass, and he unleashed a low drive towards the middle of the net, but Caoimhin Kelleher was alert and denied him.
But the goalkeeper was not able to deny Mario Pasalic in the 83rd minute as he fired the rebound into the bottom left corner after the ball broke to him in the box to make it 0-3.
Liverpool now have a mountain to climb in the second leg next week in Italy.