Mario Pasalic’s left-foot curler has given Atalanta the half-time lead over PSG in the Champions League quarter-final, as Neymar missed a couple of sitters.
La Dea were in their first ever Champions League campaign, yet already in the quarter-finals against PSG, a side who spent more on one player than it cost to put the entire Atalanta team together. Neymar’s salary alone is more than the Bergamo side’s entire wage bill.
Keylor Navas performed a stunning one-handed save on Hans Hateboer’s header into the ground at the back post, on a chipped Gomez pass. On the resulting corner, Navas was again spectacular on Mattia Caldara, but the offside flag was up.
Neymar was in more of a free role and given freedom to roam, but his pull back across the face of goal was not understood by Mauro Icardi.
Atalanta broke the deadlock with Mario Pasalic, as Duvan Zapata’s pass was intercepted, but the ricochet fell kindly for the Croatian, who curled a left-foot finish from just inside the box into the far top corner, bending it around Navas.
Moments later, Neymar nutmegged Pasalic to cut inside and drill inches wide from the D, while Pablo Sarabia ran into acres of space down the left and rolled across, but again Icardi didn’t get there for the tap-in.
Hans Hateboer got away with an awful back-pass straight at Neymar, as the Brazilian hoofed it into the stands, again getting it all wrong when one-on-one.
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