Hellas Verona bounced back from two heavy defeats against Juventus to record a 1-0 victory over Atalanta BC in Serie A this afternoon.
Javier Saviola almost opened the scoring for Verona when he was found by Panagiotis Tachtsidis and saw his close-range header saved by Marco Sportiello.
Mauricio Pinilla was then inches away from scoring for Atalanta with an overhead kick from the edge of the box, before Luca Toni smashed an effort across goal and wide of the far post for the hosts.
Following a goalless first half, Verona almost took the lead within seconds of the restart, but Toni could not stretch enough to turn in a low ball across the box.
In the 53rd minute, the hosts did manage to find the net as Saviola arrived at the front post to touch in Lazaros Christodoulopoulos's delivery.
They almost grabbed a second just past the hour mark, but Sportiello was alert to keep out Toni's neat flick.
Verona continued to look the side more likely to score next and, after a Christodoulopoulos drive was parried, Saviola somehow turned the rebound over the bar.
In the closing minutes, Giuseppe Biava headed wide for Atalanta and it proved to be their last chance as they fell to their second defeat of the week.
Alex Meyers
