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It sounds like a mistake, overprotection, the consolation of fools, but it is real: Duván Zapata was the best of Atalanta amid the humiliation he suffered against Liverpool in the Champions League.
The 0-5 leaves few reasons for the defense, but the Colombian was one of the few who showed sporting shame, who wanted to hurt the rival goal, what was really redeemable in one night to be forgotten in Bergamo.
In the first minutes he had to go down beyond the half of the Zapata field, first so as not to die of loneliness in the visitor’s premises and second to give a hand in the air game, in a game raised from the whistle on the goal of Atalanta.
He was a pivot for Muriel in the Atlantic’s first attack action, who lacked conviction in the shot, and then he was caught a few inches ahead when his shot crashed on the crossbar. The problem is that the arch in front and Jota scored a double because at the speed that the Reds play there is no respite.
Zapata did not even want to look at the start of the second stage when, again at a hectic pace, Liverpool scored with Salah and Mane and on top of it Jogo celebrated the triplet.
And his response was a well-controlled header by Alisson Becker at 51, off a corner kick.
The clearest one that he had inexplicably did not enter: at 61 he fired a shot above that crashed around the corner and bounced out. How was it possible? The ‘Toro’ Zapata still asks him. It wasn’t going to definitively change the course of the match, but it would certainly have alleviated the blow.
What was explained was the cross shot that was fought at 62, when he got into the area with pure power and released a shot that no other goalkeeper could stop him: only Alisson Becker, the best in the world, could silence him.
One more option was left to him at 80 but against the Brazilian goalkeeper he could not hurt.
To add to the frustration, the only time he could hurt Becker was offside already late in the game, at 92.
Zapata left without a prize on a night in which he really tried hard. His power and effort will remain for the scouts. For him, only the impotence of not having been able to avoid the debacle.
