Atalanta produced a stunning performance to beat Borussia Dortmund 4-1 in their Champions League play-off second leg to progress 4-3 on aggregate.
While the Bundesliga side dominated the first game at Signal Iduna Park with first-goals form Serhou Guirassy and Maximilian Beier last week, it was a different story all together in the second leg at the Gewiss Stadium on Wednesday.
Gianluca Scamacca (5′) was on target early on for Atalanta before Davide Zappacosta scored on the half-time whistle.
Mario Pasalic added a third goal with 57 minutes on the clock to put Atalanta ahead in this round for the first time. Karim Adeyemi’s goal on 75 minutes drew Dortmund level, only for Lazar Samardzic to find a 98th minute winner from the penalty spot.
Ramy Bensebaini had caught Nikola Krstovic on the head in the box with a reckless high boot as the Atalanta forward attempted to meet a cross following a mistake by goalkeeper Gregor Kobel.
After a check by VAR for a penalty and a possible red card, the referee awarded the spot-kick and sent off Bensebaini with a second yellow card.
Atalanta will now play either Arsenal or Bayern Munich in the last 16.
Reflecting on the game, Dortmund boss Niko Kovac said his side deserved to be knocked out.
He said on his club;s webssite: “We didn’t perform well enough to progress.
“When you concede four goals in the Champions League, as we have already done in the league phase, it’s difficult.
“We don’t need to talk about the penalty now. We just weren’t really there in the moments when we conceded the goals.
“In the Champions League, mistakes like that are punished, so we are very disappointed and quite downhearted.
“After playing really well at home, we can’t let a tie like this slip away here, even if we knew it was going to be tough. We’re a Bundesliga team and we have to be able to handle that. We deserved to be knocked out. We didn’t perform well enough to progress.”
A delighted Atalanta head coach Raffaele Palladino, meanwhile, expressed his pride, Tribuna, saying: “This match will go down in history not only in Bergamo, but also in the memory of Atalanta fans and in the history of Italian football. We made a comeback that will go down in football history. We are happy.
“It was perhaps the best match since I joined the team, and it will remain in my memory forever. The club deserves these pleasant emotions.
“I have heard many comments about Italian football, and often not very pleasant ones. I believe that Italian football needs protection, especially within the country. We are too critical when things don’t go well. We need to be a little more constructive, a little more positive, and today we proved that.
“Probably no one believed in us today, and that’s what I told the team: it was an amazing comeback that will change the minds of everyone who didn’t believe in us.”
