Rome: Javier Pastore scored his first Roma goal but still came in for criticism from furious coach Eusebio Di Francesco after an Emiliano Rigoni brace helped Atalanta leave the capital with a share of the spoils in a 3-3 draw in Serie A.
Roma got off to a blistering start with former Paris St-Germain player Pastore scoring two minutes into his first match at the Stadio Olimpico with a spectacular back-heel after a pinpoint Cengiz Under cross.
But Atalanta — who made a raft of changes ahead of their crunch Europa League playoff game this week — proved dangerous, taking advantage of sloppy Roman defending to pull ahead 3-1 at half-time.
Belgian defender Timothy Castagne tapped in the equaliser after 19 minutes and within three minutes Argentine Rigoni got his first goal with the second on 38 minutes.
“Javier Pastore? He scored a very nice goal but he too disappeared after the goal, he could not help out his teammates,” Di Francesco said.
“He did much better later on in the game. I would have changed seven or eight players after the first half if I could.
“We were too bad to be real, but we got it back on track.
“We did better in the second half but we didn’t defend well towards the end of the game which is why I got very mad,” added Di Francesco, whose wrist was bandaged after punching the wall of the coach’s bench in frustration.
“I wanted balance in the last 10 minutes, but we looked like amateur hour out there with 11 attacking against 11 defending. It’s no way to play.”
