We thought this was Bayer Levekusen’s game to win for yet another time having been unbeaten for so long after their outstanding Bundesliga season without losing a game (a draw doesn’t count) with the title, but unfortunately their series of hit and misses allowed Ademola Lookman to caplitalise on his unbelievable hat-trick for Atalanta BC whose Italian side was just being crowned the champions of the Europa League at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland. The final score was 3-0 after 90 mins.
Gotta feel sorry for the Levekusen fans who saw these dreams turn into reality when you got former Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso at the helm as head coach and thought a series of changes later on with a deeper squad would turn things around like it was before. We just didn’t see this happening despite having the most possession as they failed to make the most out of their conversions at least inside the penalty box and instead had balls flying everywhere which didn’t work. There’s no way they can drop out from the Champions League to the Europa League again from now on since the competition format is gonna change going into next season as his next chance would have to wait at another time with Levekusen or another club.
And for Atalanta BC, every time they had the ball they absolutely controlled well whenever they had it to steer clear of the Levekusen defenders thanks to Teun Koopmeiners and their front three before Lookman got the job done from the left wing and voila – back-to-back goals earlier in the first-half plus a 3rd strike later in the last 45 mins from someone who hails from England, played in the Premier League and is a Nigerian International through his parents’ heritage. Hats off to him who made his team’s supporters night something special to cheer about wherever they are including his team-mates and of course, the head coach Gian Piero Gasperini who has never won a major trophy before until now with this one at age 66 – how good!!
We had first-time Europa League winning coaches in the last few editions like 46-year-old Oliver Glasner (now Crystal Palace coach) for Einchart Frankfurt back in 2022 v Rangers and also 61-year-old Jose Luis Mendilibar (now Olympiacos coach who is in the running for next week’s Conference League Final v Fiorentina) last year for Sevilla v AS Roma & sure we’ll see many more to come after Gasperini. Both winners have already qualified for the Champions League next season with Levekusen via their championship league position in the Bundesliga & Atalanta either way with the Europa win tonight (now guaranteed) and the extra league position for the Serie A in 5th (which will then hand over the extra winning Europa to Champions League slot to the 6th-placed side) with two games to spare against Torino and Fiorentina. So that’s it from Aviva Stadium on what has been a cracking game where the top ranked team was crushed by the Italian Atalanta side as can’t wait for the Conference League Final (next Thursday morning) and Champions League Final (next Sunday morning on June 2) throughout next week.