Pressure ramps up on Andrea Pirlo after Juventus lose to Atalanta in Serie A

Forget about extending its record run of nine straight Serie A titles. At this rate, Juventus may not even qualify for the Champions League.

Atalanta, the Italian league's ongoing Cinderella story, beat the Bianconeri 1-0 with a late goal from Ruslan Malinovskyi on Sunday to leapfrog Andrea Pirlo’s team into third place.

The defeat came on a day of reports that Juventus is part of a group of European heavyweights renewing threats to walk away from the Champions League and create a Super League.

Juventus dropped to fourth – which carries the final Champions League berth – two points behind Atalanta and remained three points ahead of Napoli, who can pull level if they defeat runaway leaders Inter Milan in Sunday's late game.

Juventus have won only one of its last four matches and lost twice in that span – with the other defeat coming at home against promoted Benevento last month.

Atalanta now also hold an advantage over Juventus if a tiebreaker is needed. Head-to-head records are the first criteria used in Italy and the teams drew 1-1 in December.

The pressure piles the pressure on manager Andrea Pirlo. "We played the match we had to play, then the moments went in their favour," he said. "We have not faced all the games with the same motivation and aggression.

"We have to think about ourselves. We have to play seven more games and win as many as possible to get to the Champions League. If we play with this spirit there will be no problem for the rest of the championship. Our season is not over yet."

Juventus were missing an injured Cristiano Ronaldo and produced few chances in Bergamo before Malinovskyi’s shot in the 87th minute took a major deflection off Alex Sandro and sent goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny the wrong way.

It marked Atalanta’s first victory over Juventus in Serie A in more than two decades – since February 2001.

It was just the latest in a series of impressive results from Atalanta, who reached the quarter-finals of last season’s Champions League.

Juve have failed to win all four Serie A matches that Ronaldo has missed this season, including two when he had the Coronavirus and another when he was rested.

With Zlatan Ibrahimovic suspended, an own-goal from Genoa striker Gianluca Scamacca proved the winner for AC Milan in a 2-1 victory.

Milan’s first home win in more than two months made sure the Rossoneri held onto second place.

Scamacca turned away when a corner kick sailed over the head of Mario Mandzukic and the ball ricocheted off his back and into Genoa's goal. Ante Rebic had put Milan ahead early with a long-range half volley.

Mattia Destro then equalized for Genoa with a header following poor defending from Fikayo Tomori.

Lazio, meanwhile, benefitted from two own-goals in a 5-3 win over Benevento for their fifth straight victory, moving the sixth-place Roman club within four points of Juventus.

Lazio manager Simone Inzaghi missed the game against his brother and coaching counterpart Filippo Inzaghi with the coronavirus.

Ciro Immobile scored twice – the first was his 150th in Serie A – and Joaquin Correa converted a penalty for Lazio, which also got own-goals from Fabio Depaoli and Lorenzo Montipo. In Sunday's other game, Bologna beat promoted Spezia 4-1.