On the grounds of a 5-0 walkover against Udinese and Napoli’s simultaneous defeat to Inter, Atalanta Under-19s staved off the relegation playoffs and secured safety in the Primavera 1 TIMVISION league. Coach Bosi’s lads got off to a great start as Vavassori scored a brace in the 4th and 6th minutes to give the Nerazzurri an early double lead.

Then captain De Nipoti unleashed his goalscoring spree and bagged a wonderful hat-trick (including a spectacular left-foot curler as his second goal). However, a combination of results was of the essence to escape relegation and a few minutes after the final whistle came the news of Inter’s victory against Napoli.

Atalanta’s victory and the concurrent defeat of the Campanian side brought the black-and-blues 10 points clear of the third-to-last team, which meant sealing direct safety without heading to the relegation rounds. And once the whistle was also blown in Naples, the black-and-blue celebrations began.

ATALANTA 5-0 UDINESE

Scorers: Vavassori 4, 6; De Nipoti 36, 39, 75 (pen).

Atalanta: Bertini, Del Lungo, Muhameti (Chiwisa 46), Vlahović (Bevilacqua 56), De Nipoti (Riccio 76), Palestra, Guerini, Manzoni (Stabile 81), Vavassori (Ghezzi 46), Regonesi, Mendicino. Unused bench: Maglieri, Pardel, Meloni, Roaldsøy, Chiwisa, Riccio, Ghezzi, Stabile, Tavanti, Bevilacqua, Tornaghi, Fiogbe. Coach: Giovanni Bosi.

Udinese: Di Bartolo Zuccarello, Castagnaviz, Di Lazzaro, Panagiotakopoulos (Landolfo 58), Nwachukwu, Palma (Owusu 87), Marello, Nuredini, Pejicic (Degano 83), De Crescenzo, Lozza. Unused bench: Mosca, Nijon, Zunec, Owosu, Degano, Abdalla, Landolfo. Coach: Jani Sturm.

Referee: Davide Gandino from Alessandria (assistant referees Giuseppe Cesarano from Castellammare di Stabia and Antonio Caputo from Benevento).

Notes: Panagiotakopoulos (U) booked