Josip Ilicic scored four times in a 4-3 win over Valencia to power the Champions League newcomers into the quarter-finals for a welcome boost back home in Bergamo, at the centre of Italy's escalating coronavirus drama. "We are very happy to have represented a region that in this period suffers so much," said coach Gian Piero Gasperini after the team from the foothills of the Italian Alps became the first debutants to reach the last eight of the elite European competition. "We will all celebrate together in June," Gasperini promised the housebound fans.

"Everyone united, we will beat this virus." Going through 8-4 on aggregate, Atalanta's players held up a t-shirt to the TV camera after the game in an empty Mestalla Stadium, urging: "Bergamo, it's for you. Don't give up!" The Lombardy region in northern Italy has been hardest-hit by coronavirus epidemic which has killed 631 people in the country, where over 10,000 have been infected. Over 40,000 Atalanta fans -- a third of Bergamo's population -- had travelled to the San Siro to see the team win the first leg 4-1 on February 19 before the virus swept through Italy.