Teun Koopmeiners and Aleksei Miranchuk completed the turnaround for Atalanta to beat Hellas Verona and consolidate their title credentials.
La Dea crashed out of the Champions League on Thursday with a 3-2 home defeat against Villarreal, postponed from the night before due to a snowstorm. Ruslan Malinovskyi was suspended, with Robin Gosens still injured, while Hellas were fresh from an incredible comeback from 3-0 down to beat Venezia 4-3. Antonin Barak returned, but Nikola Kalinic, Koray Gunter, Gianluca Frabotta and Pawel Dawidowicz were unavailable.
Gianluca Caprari’s curler skimmed the crossbar and Verona took the lead when Cholito Simeone caught the defence napping to fire at the near post from the tightest of angles, it may well have been going wide, but hit Juan Musso and ricocheted in.
Simeone’s header was charged down, possibly by Merih Demiral’s arm, and Musso parried the Kevin Lasagna rebound.
Atalanta almost equalised on 34 minutes, Aleksei Miranchuk’s backheel setting up Mario Pasalic, whose strike cannoned off the upright.
The equaliser came soon after, as Giuseppe Pezzella stole it from Ivan Ilic inside the penalty area and allowed Miranchuk to sweep into the bottom corner.
Atalanta were revitalised, the Pasalic curler palmed out from the far bottom corner, but Verona also threatened when Ceccherini’s header on a corner was nodded out at the back post by Davide Zappacosta under pressure from Lasagna.
Adrien Tameze had beaten Musso with a shot on the volley from the D, but Rafael Toloi was there for the crucial goal-line clearance.
Josip Ilicic came off the bench and immediately sent Demiral clear, forcing a desperate Lorenzo Montipò save.
Teun Koopmeiners hit a hopeful effort from distance that took a huge deflection off Tameze to completely wrong-foot his goalkeeper, as Atalanta took the lead.
Simeone unleashed a screamer that bent inwards and skimmed the upright, while Ilicic fired over at the other end and Hans Hateboer stung the goalkeeper’s gloves.
Verona 1-2 Atalanta
Simeone 22 (V), Miranchuk 37 (A), Koopmeiners 62 (A)