Everton’s Premier League riches proved no match for the masterful Gian Piero Gasperini’s Atalanta in their Europa League debut as a rampant La Dea secured a 3-0 win.
Andrea Masiello opened the scoring for the Italians before Alejandro Gomez and Bryan Cristante added to their tally, in a scoreline that, if anything, flattered the English side.
Despite playing close to 200 kilometres from home, Atalanta started as if they were in Bergamo and caused early problems for their Premier League opponents. Hans Hateboer and Timothy Castagne were keen to attack on either side, but the Bergamaschi never carved out any clear cut chances.
Everton too showed what they were capable of. Gylfi Sigurdsson stung the hands of Etrit Berisha from range before a clever Wayne Rooney dink from the edge of the box landed on top of the Albanian’s net.
With a quarter of an hour gone, a couple of Papu Gomez corners in quick succession troubled the Blues’ defence, but again La Dea could not find a way through.
The biggest chance for an opener fell to Andrea Masiello. A good pass from Gomez found Andrea Petagna before the ball scrambled through to the defender, whose close range effort was turned behind by Maarten Stekelenburg.
From the resulting corner Atalanta’s 26-year wait was over and they went ahead through Masiello. A loose ball dropped at the back post on practically the same blade of grass from where he was denied and this time he poked the ball home.
Continuing their complete dominance, La Dea should have doubled their advantage after the half hour mark. Gomez, first, played the ball across goal before it was returned by Hateboer but on neither occasion was it turned home.
Masiello again found himself through on goal having been picked out by Petagna and Stekelenburg, again, denied him.
Before long, the Bergamaschi really made their dominance show. Papu was dancing again after cutting in from the left 20-yards from goal and curling a superb strike into Stekelenburg’s top left-hand corner and just three minutes later Atalanta would increase their lead to three.
Petagna found space in the Everton half and with Gomez in support he tried to switch the play to his Argentine teammate. His pass was intercepted, however, by an oncoming Cristante who charged through the middle and slotted beyond Stekelenburg to send the traveling home support into complete delirium.
The second half began exactly where the first ended and Gasperini’s men were keen to add more. Hateboer found Petagna who held the ball well before picking out Remo Freuler only for the Swiss to crash his shot off the crossbar. Gomez too could have added to the tally but fired over when he should have done better.
From then, the game slowed as Atalanta continued to seek a fourth but with less urgency than before.
The game’s remaining minutes were filled with frustration for the Merseysiders, who were limited to shots from range and Gasperini’s men comfortably saw out the game.
La Dea’s next Europa League game sees them travel to France on September 28 to take on Ligue 1 giants Lyon.
