TURIN (AFP) - Atalanta cruised past Sampdoria 4-0 on Monday to keep pace with Juventus in Serie A’s race for the Champions League.
Mario Pasalic’s early strike, goals in each half from Teun Koopmeiners and Aleksei Miranchuk’s late finish ensured that Atalanta stayed three points behind Juve, who sit in fourth after their win at Empoli.
Gian Piero Gasperini’s side have a game in hand which if they win would move them above Juve thanks to their superior head-to-head record.
A typically attack-minded display at the Gewiss Stadium gave Atalanta just their second win from eight Serie A games played since the turn of the year, ending a run of five league matches without victory.
It was also their first league home win since the end of November, their fourth in Bergamo all season.
Pasalic opened the scoring in the sixth minute with a powerful header which completely wrong-footed Wladimiro Falcone in the Samp goal.
The Croatia international netted his ninth league goal of the season after replacing Ruslan Malinovskyi just before kick-off.
Malinovskyi, who had recently spoken out against the Russian invasion of his home country Ukraine, was due to start but picked up a calf injury in the pre-match warm up.
The 24-year-old was pictured chatting on the sidelines with his compatriot Vladyslav Supryaha, who is on loan at Samp from Dynamo Kyiv.