Atalanta defender Berat Djimsiti believes that Atalanta had one unfortunate moment against Liverpool in their Europa League quarter-final second leg on Thursday night, but feels like the home side responded immediately and began playing their own game thereafter.
La Dea progressed to the final four of the Europa League despite slipping to a 1-0 defeat against Jurgen Klopp’s men at the Gewiss Stadium. Their 3-0 win at Anfield last week ensure a 3-1 aggregate score for Gasperini’s side.
Atalanta found themselves behind after just seven minutes on the night, after Matteo Ruggeri handballed Trent Alexander-Arnold’s attempted cross. Mohamed Salah coolly converted the spot-kick.
From there on in, though, Liverpool had fairly few clear-cut chances, other than one that fell to Salah, who managed to put his attempted lob wide of Joan Musso’s goal towards the end of the first half.
Assessing Thursday night’s showing with Sky Sport Italia, Djimsiti, who put in a particularly impressive display at the back, said: “It’s a moment of great pride for us, it was wonderful to see Bergamo so amped up and together with the team.
“They’ve been through an incredible week watching us, but the fans pushed us to reach this incredible achievement.”
Answering questions about the penalty incident, Djimisit added: “It was definitely an unfortunate moment, the penalty, but we then immediately responded and tried to play our game and I think we succeeded.”