Gian Piero Gasperini admits Atalanta ‘leave the Champions League with a lot of regrets’ after their 3-2 home defeat to Villarreal and a whole group of wasted opportunities.

La Dea needed a victory here to stay in the Champions League, but were 3-0 down and the comeback was too late, eventually losing 3-2.

Champions League | Atalanta 2-3 Villarreal: Unlucky Dea drop out

They also hit the woodwork three times, but the regrets are earlier in the group, as Atalanta took the lead in five of their six games and only won one of them.

The Italians managed to fumble an extraordinary nine points from leading situations in this tournament.

“We usually manage to give our best in games like this, but instead we had just a horrible start and it becomes difficult when you go behind at this level,” Gasperini told Amazon Prime Italia.

“We got the sensation as time wore on that we could get back into it, but it was too late. When Muriel hit the post, if that had gone in for 3-3, it would’ve given us a chance to throw everything at them. It is also true that in the 90 minutes we were unable to play the way we can.

“There are even more regrets because we went out in a game that we were more than capable of winning. The players have put in so many good performances this season, an off day can happen. When we managed to improve the quality of the football, that’s when we created lots of scoring opportunities.

“With Villarreal taking such an early lead, they could sit back even deeper and we struggled to break them down. The whole first half was not good, we misplaced passes and lacked our usual quality.

“We leave the Champions League with a lot of regrets.”

9 thought on “Gasperini: ‘Atalanta leave Champions League with regrets’”
  1. The only real Italian hope in the ucl couldn’t make.

    Atalanta is the only team in Italy in ucl that is reliable.others are not reliable.
    Atalanta see you next year

  2. Very very sad to see them go out. Playing in the EL will be tough for them and they will probably not be inspired to give it their best.

  3. Actually they lost something special over these years, too many small mistakes to go through

  4. Isaac, not sure you can say any of the Italian teams were Italy’s best hope. Italian clubs are still inferior to the EPL sides, Real and Bayern. Atalanta will always let you down when it counts because they can always be hit on the break and their defence is very, very suspect under real pressure.

  5. Many people praise Atalanta too much, in fact they have not had won anything…they are good but not consistent. Don’t praise them above Inter, Juve, …their journey has just started. Need many many historical performance of them before praising them high

  6. too bad… they were like a classic quintessential italian underdog team, but somewhat like the country where their league is from they blew too many chances, made some howlers. honestly now tho, its getting tough watching CL this last decade as italian teams seem to not even belong in CL cuz of the constant let downs and disappointing outcomes. even tho Atalanta has done better than its other Serie A clubs id like to see Napoli, and Lazio back… even tho we know they’ll fail horribly too.

  7. I’ve followed Italian football for 30 + years and I’ve made some nice pocket money betting against Italians sides in CL – especially in the last decade.

    Never count on an Italian club to achieve a result in a must win CL game.

    And in case people are wondering Vilarreal were 5 to on underdogs just go put it in perspective.

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