Atalanta coach Gian Piero Gasperini says their 2-2 draw with Verona was a wake-up call.

Ahead of Thursday's Europa League quarterfinal second-leg against Liverpool, La Dea blew a 2-0 lead to draw on Monday night.

Gasperini said: “It was a good game, but clearly there are regrets we wasted an opportunity when 2-0 up and could've challenged for a more prestigious European place.

“However, Verona played with great intensity and I think it was a very good game of football. I don't think our fitness levels dropped, as late on we had important chances to retake the lead. Unfortunately, we have seen several times this season that we threw away in a very short space of time.

“I also doubt we were distracted by Liverpool, as this was an important match to close up on Roma and Bologna. It would've been fundamental to win this, at least for Champions League ambitions.

“There is another competition on Thursday, but in Serie A unfortunately we cannot deny that we wasted a lot of opportunities by conceding two goals in a few minutes."

He added: "I don't think Atalanta expected to be in all three tournaments in April. We started with a squad that expected to have a good season, but this one has gone beyond expectations in every competition.

"It is also worth noting that in our last 12 games, eight of them have been away from home. It has been a very intense period with a lot of travel, we also had a run of seeing Inter, Milan, Juventus, Bologna, Napoli, so we hoped to improve our tally today against Verona, but it didn't work out like that.

"We decided not to favour one tournament over another, we will try to do our best in them all. We'll see how it goes, but some of our players are like Highlander, they keep going."