Queens Park Rangers 1-1 Atalanta: Oribici decent in strong friendly workout

Date: 2nd August 2015 at 4:28pm
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AtalantaSerie A side Atalanta drew 1-1 with Queens Park Rangers in a friendly at Loftus Road on Sunday.

The visitors opened the scoring through Jasmin Kurtic’s spectacular volley after just 14 minutes with QPR coming closest to an equaliser when Tjaronn Chery hit the post.

After Gaetano Monachello failed to double Atalanta’s lead, QPR levelled through Jay Emmanuel-Thomas’ deflected strike.

La Dea set up with a flexible 4-3-3 formation against the Championship outfit and were boosted by the presence of a hundred or so ultras in West London.

Early pressure arrived for the R’s but the visitors defended stoutly to deny any openings and when given the chance Atalanta moved the ball nicely with Marco D’Alessandro scuffing their first chance wide after 12 minutes.

Now on top of the game, Atalanta led when a free-kick was cleared to Kurtic and the Slovenian crashed a wonderful volley into the top corner from 25 yards.

QPR replied with efforts from German attacker Sebastian Polter and an excellent Chery free-kick that hit the woodwork leaving Marco Sportiello helpless. The 23-year-old then smartly denied the Dutchman moments later with a low save.

The hosts ended the half well with Matt Phillips testing Sportiello as Atalanta sat deep but the Italians went into the break a goal ahead.

Much changed for the second half, Atalanta had a couple of penalty claims shunned by the referee in quick succession before Alejandro Gomez latched onto an error to set up fellow sub Monachello who fluffed a great chance to make it 2-0.

The leveller arrived through midfielder Emmanuel-Thomas. La Dea were unable to clear their lines before the Englishman drew the ball into an opening and found the goal via a big deflection on 62 minutes.

Both the dangerous Gomez and Richmond Boakye came close later on but it finished 1-1 between the evenly-matched teams.

Unbeaten throughout pre-season, the Oribici’s Serie A opener is against Inter on August 23.

 

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