Atalanta hit the woodwork with Papu Gomez, while the captain and Andreas Cornelius missed decisive penalties in the Europa League play-off with FC Copenhagen.
The first leg ended 0-0, even though Gian Piero Gasperini’s men dominated the match and forced numerous tough saves out of Jesse Joronen. It meant a score draw in Denmark would be enough to secure qualification to the group stage after eliminating Sarajevo and Hapoel Haifa. Josip Ilicic was still out of action with a mystery illness, while several star names were rested for Monday’s 3-3 thriller at Roma.
Atalanta hit the woodwork with Papu Gomez, while the captain and Andreas Cornelius missed decisive penalties in the Europa League play-off with FC Copenhagen.
The first leg ended 0-0, even though Gian Piero Gasperini’s men dominated the match and forced numerous tough saves out of Jesse Joronen. It meant a score draw in Denmark would be enough to secure qualification to the group stage after eliminating Sarajevo and Hapoel Haifa. Josip Ilicic was still out of action with a mystery illness, while several star names were rested for Monday’s 3-3 thriller at Roma.
Duvan Zapata’s early header was just over from point-blank range and Pierluigi Gollini was at full stretch to turn a Viktor Fischer angled drive out of the far bottom corner.
Atalanta began to pile on the pressure midway through the first half, Marten De Roon, Remo Freuler and Mario Pasalic seeing shots charged down or beaten away.
Robert Skov threatened on the half-hour mark, his left-foot strike palmed out from under the bar by Gollini.
After the restart, Papu Gomez stung Joronen’s gloves from outside the box as it was curling into the far bottom corner, but the Argentine was so unlucky to see his free kick smack against the upright with the goalkeeper beaten.
Substitute Andreas Cornelius, up against his old club, soared above the crowd to steer a header just wide, but Peter Ankersen went into the book for a dive over Andrea Masiello’s foot in the penalty area.
It was wide open as the clock ticked down and Timothy Castagne charged down a Fischer solo effort, but there were still no goals and it went to extra time.
Teenage striker Musa Barrow’s ferocious angled drive hit the side-netting, but Nicolai Boilesen incredibly failed to score unmarked at the back post on a free kick, as he tried to fire off the outside of the boot and it went wide from six yards.
Jose Luis Palomino stood his ground for a decisive tackle as Fischer tried to break through to go clear on goal, but in the end it could only be decided on penalties.
Papu Gomez fired his spot-kick on to the crossbar, while Gollini got his fingers to Robert Skov’s attempt, but not enough to keep it out of the near bottom corner.
Dame N’Doye blasted his over the frame of the goal to even things up, but immediately afterwards Cornelius saw his dinked effort palmed away by Joronen’s trailing hand.
Denis Vavro took the final and decisive kick low into the near bottom corner and sent Atalanta out of the Europa League.
Copenhagen 0-0 Atalanta aet (0-0 agg, 4-3 on penalties)
Penalties: De Roon (goal, Atalanta), Sotiriou (goal, Copenhagen), Ali Adnan (goal, Atalanta), Gregus (goal, Copenhagen), Gomez (crossbar, Atalanta), Skov (goal, Copenhagen), Masiello (goal, Atalanta), N’Doye (over, Copenhagen), Cornelius (saved, Atalanta), Vavro (goal, Copenhagen)
Copenhagen: Joronen; Ankersen, Vavro, Bjelland, Boilesen (Kvist 109); Skov, Falk (Sotiriou 66), Zeca, Thomsen (Gregus 79); Fischer (Bengtsson 109), N’Doye
Atalanta: Gollini; Toloi, Palomino, Masiello; Castagne, De Roon, Freuler (Pessina 91), Gosens (Ali Adnan 94); Pasalic (Barrow 57), Duvan Zapata (Cornelius 53), Gomez
Ref: Sidiropoulos (GRE)