Atalanta easily qualified for the eighth finals of the Europa League on Thursday evening. In the play-off match with Olympiacos, the team of trainer Gian Piero Gasperini was 0-3 too strong. Ruslan Malinovskyi was the celebrated man on behalf of with two goals la Dea† The Ukrainian celebrated his first goal by making a statement in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, RB Leipzig, FC Porto and Sevilla also secured a place in the knockout stage of the Europa League.
Olympiacos – Atalanta 0-3
At Atalanta, Marten de Roon and Hans Hateboer got a basic place, while Teun Koopmeiners, just like in the first game (2-1), had to settle for a place on the bench. Especially for the home crowd, the game was not a feast for the eyes, as Olympiacos did not produce a single shot on goal in the first half. Shots were fired by Atalanta, which made it 0-1 just before half-time. De Roon had a splitting through ball to Joakim Maehle, who finished in a cool way. The lead was doubled halfway through the second act.
Ruslan Malinovskyi scores beautifully on a pass from Teun Koopmeiners, shows ‘No War in Ukraine’ and again scores brilliantly ??#uel pic.twitter.com/UpOakyWRnI
— ESPN NL (@ESPNnl) February 24, 2022
Substitute Koopmeiners put the ball on the edge of the box for Malinovskyi, who curled the ball into the left corner with great feeling: 0-2. The Ukrainian was visibly emotional after his goal and showed a shirt with the text ‘No war in Ukraine† Two minutes later, Malinovskyi was again accurate, this time with a shot from even greater distance. After a wide pass, the midfielder placed the ball beautifully in the top right corner.
Lazio – FC Porto 2-2
The Romans, who had to brush away last week’s 2-1 defeat, started the game very strongly. Ciro Immobile had scored three times before the end of the 22nd minute of play, but only one of his goals remained. After a deep pass from Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Immobile rounded off convincingly: 0-1. Both the first and third goals were disallowed for offside. After half an hour of play, Porto equalized. Referee Deniz Aytekin made the controversial decision to award the Portuguese a penalty after a minor foul on Mehdi Taremi. The latter went behind the ball himself and scored: 1-1. In the second half, the curtain finally fell for Lazio, as Mateus Uribe took care of the 1-2 on Taremi’s pass. Lazio made it 2-2 deep into injury time via Danilo Cataldi.