Champions Napoli slump to 3-0 home defeat by Atalanta

NAPLES, Italy: Napoli were beaten 3-0 at home by Atalanta in Serie A on Saturday as the Italian champions lost further ground in the race for Champions League qualification.

Goals from Aleksei Miranchuk, Gianluca Scamacca and Teun Koopmeiners gave the visitors their first league victory in five games as sixth-placed Atalanta moved up to 50 points. Napoli are seventh, five points behind having played a game more.

“If you win 3-0 in Napoli, you can only be satisfied. From the first half we created a lot and held the game well. Napoli also created, but overall we were superior,” Atalanta coach Gian Piero Gasperini told DAZN.

Before kickoff, Napoli players knelt in support of team mate Juan Jesus, four days after a judge cleared Inter Milan’s Francesco Acerbi of a charge of racially insulting the Brazilian during a Serie A game.

Napoli nearly conceded inside three minutes at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium when Miranchuk collected a fine pass from Mario Pasalic and fired a shot against the post.

He made no mistake in the 26th minute, however, slotting the ball home from close range following a scramble in Napoli’s box.

Scamacca doubled the visitors’ lead on the stroke of halftime after pressuring Napoli defender Jesus into a mistake and shooting from the edge of the box past goalkeeper Alex Meret into the bottom-left corner.

Napoli were missing playmaker Khvicha Kvaratskhelia through injury and although they had the lion’s share of possession, they lacked quality in the final third.

They hit the post twice inside a minute but Atalanta sealed the three points when Koopmeiners’s effort in the 88th minute found the corner of the net.

The Dutch midfielder has scored 10 goals since the turn of the year, taking his tally to 13 for the season.

“The chances of going to the Champions League have shrunk, but we have to look ahead, improve and try to win games,” Napoli coach Francesco Calzona said.