Atalanta Draw 1-1 with Kairat Almaty

Atalanta drew 1-1 with Kairat Almaty in the Conference League, extending their winless run to seven matches. The team rescued a point thanks to Nikola Krstovic's goal.

Before this match, Atalanta had picked up two draws in their last six official games. Following a 3-0 home defeat to Parma on Monday, the team went into a three-day training camp to prepare for this encounter. Thomas Kristensen, Gianluca Gaetano, Raoul Bellanova, Franck Kessie, Sead Kolasinac, Isak Hien, Giacomo Raspadori and Odilon Kossounou were all unavailable through injury, so Javison Idele, from the youth team, started in the starting XI for the first time.

Kairat Almaty were knocked out of the Champions League and Europa League qualifying rounds after winning the Kazakhstan championship. In the Conference League, they drew away to Riga and lost 5-1 to Panathinaikos. This was the second match under interim head coach Zhora Arutyunyan.

In the first half, Kairat Almaty defender Damir Kassabulat nearly scored an own goal when he failed to look at his goal while playing a backpass. For Atalanta, Mario Pasalic's shot around the 30th minute went just outside the post. Kairat Almaty took the lead through Marc Gual's counterattack, with balls flying over the goalkeeper.

In the 65th minute, Eljif Elmas scored for Atalanta, but the goal was disallowed for offside. The equalizer came from a corner: after Relja Obric cleared the ball off the line, Nikola Krstovic scored from six metres. In stoppage time, Mario Pasalic had a significant chance but failed to hit the target.