AS Roma beat Atalanta BC 3-0 in the fifth round of the Coppa Italia on Tuesday, despite playing most of the second half with 10 men.
The capital side are scheduled to meet either Udinese or ACF Fiorentina in the next round next month after a fifth consecutive victory in all competitions.
Miralem Pjanic and Pablo Osvaldo put Roma 2-0 up before the break following two howlers from Atalanta goalkeeper Andrea Consigli.
Photo: EPA
Mattia Destro extended Roma’s lead shortly after the interval.
Osvaldo swiftly went from hero to villain as he was shown a straight red card 10 minutes into the second period for an elbow on Atalanta defender Carlos Matheu.
“I’m happy with the result,” Roma coach Zdenek Zeman said. “At the beginning, we tried to do what we know how to do. In the second half, we gave them too much initiative, but what was important was to go through to the next round. On every corner Osvaldo had a player on top of him and he wanted to get free, but you shouldn’t act as if you were playing rugby and to free yourself you have to be cunning. It’s difficult to decide what to do.”
Photo: EPA
Roma and Atalanta fielded almost full-strength lineups, although Daniele de Rossi was handed a start for the first time in a month for the capital side.
Destro had penalty appeal waved away in the 20th minute when he appeared to be bundled over by Cristiano Raimondi in the area, but Roma were in front seconds later when Pjanic’s shot from the edge of the area — which looked like an easy attempt for the Italy under-21 goalkeeper to punch clear — stung Consigli’s palms on the way in.
Roma doubled their lead 10 minutes later when Consigli mistimed his run to gather Destro’s through ball and Osvaldo tapped it in.
They extended their lead still further six minutes into the second half when Pjanic threaded through a delightful ball for Destro to side-foot home.
Atalanta were gifted a chance to get back into the game when Osvaldo was rightly sent off for swinging out an elbow after appearing to be being held by Matheu at a corner, but Roma goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg pulled off a stunning diving save to keep out Facundo Parra’s close-range header and Atalanta had a penalty appeal dismissed seconds later when Ivan Piris appeared to handle following Giuseppe de Luca’s header.
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