Champions League: Atalanta and Sporting run riot with dominant victories

Raffaele Palladino oversaw his first win as Atalanta head coach as he guided them to a commanding 3–0 victory away to Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League.

Frankfurt came close on a number of occasions early on, before Atalanta were twice denied by the woodwork – first off Ademola Lookman’s shot from range and then from Gianluca Scamacca’s instinctive close-range attempt.

Atalanta then put on a clinic at Deutsche Bank Park after the break, adding three goals in the space of five minutes as Lookman broke the deadlock on the hour mark with a powerful volley.

Ederson added a second just two minutes later, dinking a shot beyond a helpless Michael Zetterer from close range, before Charles De Ketelaere capped off a fine performance by pouncing on the rebound of Scamacca’s shot off the crossbar.

Sporting CP delighted the home crowd at the Estadio Jose Alvalade with a dominant 3-0 win over Club Brugge, inspired by a standout performance from Geovany Quenda.

Matters could have been different, with Morten Hjulmand initially shown a straight red card nine minutes in, but he saw the card demoted to a yellow following a VAR review.

Quenda then put the hosts ahead as he was on hand to latch onto Nordin Jackers’ save off Geny Catamo’s shot, tapping home on the spin in the 24th minute.

Luis Suarez added a second just past the half-hour mark, beating Jackers with a lovely chip into the bottom corner, and Quenda teed up Francisco Trincao for a superb curling finish into the far corner in the 70th minute.

Data Debrief: Palladino continues strong European goalscoring run

Across Palladino’s 13 matches in major European competition – 12 with Fiorentina and one with Atalanta – his teams have scored 33 goals, an impressive average of 2.5 per match.

Atalanta exceeded that mark on Wednesday, generating 3.08 expected goals (xG) to Frankfurt’s 1.05 in a highly encouraging attacking display.

Sporting, meanwhile, were powered by clinical finishing from Quenda, Luis Suarez and Trincao, posting 1.75 xG compared to Club Brugge’s 0.81.

Quenda, at the age of 18 years and 210 days, is the first teenager to score multiple goals for Sporting in a single Champions League campaign.