Torino fell to their first defeat of the season as they lost 2-0 at Atalanta on Sunday evening, despite the Granata hitting the woodwork on two occasions.
Toro made three changes to the side that beat Sassuolo last weekend, with Migjen Basha, Omar El Kaddouri and Marcelo Larrondo all coming into the eleven. The omission of Alessio Cerci from the starting line up was certainly a surprise, but the Italy international was apparently struggling with an injury.
The home side started brightly, as firstly Giacomo Bonaventura and then German Denis went close for Atalanta, with the latter forcing a good save from Daniele Padelli. At the other end, Omar El Kaddouri almost scored a memorable goal on the counter attack after running from his own half, but he was denied by Andrea Consigli.
From the resulting corner, Torino went even closer as Matteo Darmian stabbed the ball onto the crossbar. And it took a miraculous save from Consigli to deny Toro's other wing back, as Danilo D'Ambrosio almost headed Torino into the lead from close range.
At the start of the second half, an inch-perfect pass from D'Ambrosio put Larrondo through on goal, but the Argentine striker could only hit the side netting with his shot. Moments later, the former Siena man had another excellent chance to give Torino the lead from the edge of the area, but on this occasion he ballooned the ball over the bar.
With Toro missing so many clear cut chances, the inevitable happened after 57 minutes when Toro failed to deal with a free kick and the ball fell kindly to Guglielmo Stendardo who struck it past Padelli to give the home side the lead. However, there were question marks regarding whether the goal should have stood as fellow defender Mario Yepes was clearly standing in an offside position which left Padelli unsighted.
Giampiero Ventura acted immediately as he took captain Kamil Glik off and brought on Alessio Cerci as the team switched to a 4-3-3 formation. Moments after that switch, Toro came narrowly close to an equaliser as Omar El Kaddouri struck an excellent free kick but it rebounded off the crossbar.
But Toro's inability to defend set pieces was their downfall once again, as Atalanta doubled their lead ten minutes from time when an unmarked Stefano Lucchini powered a header past Padelli.
This was a difficult loss for Toro to take considering they were the better team for much of the contest, but they learnt a valuable lesson regarding the importance of defending set pieces properly. However, there were a number of positives also - the performance of Omar El Kaddouri especially - and the fact that they were able to create so many chances, but unfortunately were unable to convert any of them.
Forza Torino
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