Atalanta vs PSG: The Perfect One-Legged Champions League Game!
Before the game, all anyone could talk about was how PSG's wonderkid, Kylian Mbappe had made a miraculous recovery from his injury. Atalanta laid out a formation that suited their attacking style. They played their 3-4-1-2 style, with the captain, Alejandro Gomez distributing balls to the two strikers ahead of him. It was certain that they weren't afraid of PSG's attack. PSG lined up with their usual 4-3-3, with Neymar and Icardi swapping their roles while going forward.
PSG started the game on the front foot with Neymar dribbling past the Atalanta defenders like they didn't even exist. He played out two world-class balls that should have been converted by Pablo Sarabia and Mauro Icardi, but both lacked the bit of pace Mbappe got into the game. Neymar, too, missed two sitters that a player of his calibre should have scored.
Eventually, PSG was made to rue their missed chances as Atalanta striker, Pasalic scored a brilliant first-touch goal into the corner of Keylor Navas' goal. This happened in the 26th minute and at this point, the entire world was wondering whether the underdogs can actually dump the PSG big-weights from the grandest tournament in the world.
Following the goal, PSG was seen attacking from everywhere. Atalanta, who only had to defend a lead now played a very rough game, not shy to give away fouls at any place on the pitch. Unfortunately for them, they weren't the best team to defend leads as their entire game was based on attacking and scoring. However, Atalanta didn't even make it seem like they weren't the best defenders till the very end of the game when the conceded two stoppage-time goals.
For the first goal, substitute Chuopo-Moting chipped the ball over the Atalanta defenders to Neymar, who squared the ball to Marquinhos, who only had to tap the ball in and made zero mistakes. At this point, everyone was prepared to watch another 30 minutes of football, hinting at the game going to extra-time.
However, the match had another surprise in store. Neymar played in a through ball to Mbappe in the box, who squared it down to Chuopo-Moting for another tap-in. Surprise, surprise, he managed to score and PSG had to hold Atalanta down only for a couple of minutes.
Check out the match highlights here.
Atalanta did manage to get into a 1v1 situation with PSG goalie Ric, who had to subbed in after Navas pulled his hamstring, but managed to miss it and miss out on the Champions League semi-final place, too.
In the end, it was just another fantastic European night.
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