{"id":20803,"date":"2025-12-10T10:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T08:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/atalanta-turn-the-tide-to-beat-chelsea-in-champions-league-battle\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:32:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:32:02","slug":"atalanta-turn-the-tide-to-beat-chelsea-in-champions-league-battle","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/atalanta-turn-the-tide-to-beat-chelsea-in-champions-league-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"Atalanta turn the tide to beat Chelsea in Champions League battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\">Atalanta sealed an important Champions League comeback victory, overturning Chelsea 2-1 at home on Tuesday through goals from Gianluca Scamacca and Charles De Ketelaere.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>The win put the Bergamo side near the top of the Champions League table, giving them a major step toward direct qualification for the round of 16 with 13 points, while Chelsea sits in the knockout phase play-off section on 10.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Joao Pedro broke the deadlock for Chelsea after 25 minutes, pouncing on a quickly taken corner that caught Atalanta sleeping. He swept in a pinpoint low cross from Reece James and, after a brief \u00a0check confirmed he had timed his run perfectly, the goal stood.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Chelsea kept control up to the interval, but Atalanta returned with far more intent after the break and soon thought they had levelled when Ademola Lookman tapped in a cross. But Lookman had strayed clearly offside, and the goal was ruled out with little protest.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>The momentum had clearly shifted to the hosts, and in the 55th minute, De Ketelaere battled his way down the side of the box and lifted a clever ball into the middle, where Scamacca broke free from his marker and steered a header into the net for the equaliser.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Atalanta had fully taken command, with Chelsea struggling to cope with the Italians\u2019 rapid flank play.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Seven minutes before stoppage time, De Ketelaere burst into the box and fired a low effort that keeper Robert Sanchez could only parry into the roof of the net, completing the hosts\u2019 comeback.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Chelsea pushed hard to rescue a point in the closing stages, creating several late chances, but the margins were not on the London club\u2019s side as the attempts were either saved or missed the goal.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14794,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-20803","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The win put the Bergamo side near the top of the Champions League table.","published_date":null,"news_description":"The win put the Bergamo side near the top of the Champions League table.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24711,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20803\/revisions\/24711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=20803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}