By Samuel A. May 23, 2024
FIFTY ONE GAMES UNBEATEN RUN that saw Xabi Alonso and Bayer Leverkusen lift the Meisterschale after an unbeaten season, reach the DFB Pokal final and Europa League final was ended by Gasperini and Atalanta on Wednesday. The Italian side completely outclassed Leverkusen to clinch the Europa League that many thought could be going Leverkusen’s way. Atalanta BC had a plan to stop Leverkusen by playing a high pressing football with each man to one player, which made Leverkusen suffer because they weren’t able to play in their rhythm, but they had another plan on the other end of the pitch in Ademola Lookman. The Nigerian sensation stepped up his game and put up a fine display which had to be perfect and scored a hat trick to perfectly execute the whole Gasperini masterplan.
He [Lookman] had arrived in Ireland at the start of the week having lost the AFCON final with Nigeria and the Coppa Italia final with Atalanta already in 2024.
“They always say third time lucky,” he said with a grin and the match ball tucked under his right arm after a career defining night as Xabi Alonso’s all conquering Bayer Leverkusen were upstaged on the night.
The Europa League was Atalanta’s second trophy in their 116 year history – six decades after lifting the Coppa Italia in 1963.Alonso had no response to the suffocating press. His defender Edmond Tapsoba, was exposed by the pace of Lookman. Defender Sead Kolasinac said: “Before the game, I went into Djimsiti’s room, and we both had the feeling he could decide the game tonight. We know all about his quality. I don’t know how many times after the game I told him, ‘thank you’ because he gave us the trophy with his hat-trick. We’re super happy to have him in our team.”
In England, he had been classed as the nearly man, bouncing around loan spells. It was a nomadic existence, but on one night in Dublin, Lookman scored three times as many goals as he managed in three Premier League seasons with Everton.
That solitary strike came in his debut against Manchester City – a memorable 4-0 win to inflict the biggest defeat, still, in Pep Guardiola’s managerial career.
It wasn’t then a sign of things to come, but Gian Piero Gasperini and his Atalanta staff saw something in him. Like Lookman, Kolasinac and others in this band of journeymen, his is a tale of sporting perseverance. It is a triumph as much for club servants Rafael Toloi, Marten De Roon, Hans Hateboer, Mario Pasalic and for Djimsiti as it is for Lookman and for Gasperini, who became the fourth oldest manager to win a major European trophy after Raymond Goethals, Jupp Heynckes and Sir Alex Ferguson.
He had previously lost three times in the Coppa Italia final with Atalanta, finally striking gold at the fourth time of asking. “I am hugely proud for all of Italy because it was a cursed trophy,” said Gasperini, who has led the club since 2016. “Having won it with Atalanta is perhaps one of those footballing fairytales that rarely crop up.It gives hope for meritocracy. It doesn’t come down to Super Leagues. You can show faith in other teams without big bills and budgets.”
Gasperini came close to being sacked after just five matches during his first season in 2016/17 but unlike his short spell at Inter Milan, the owners kept the faith.
They were rewarded and he was made an honorary citizen of Bergamo in September 2019, but now there will be calls for a statue of the 66 year old in the Piazza Vecchia following the first trophy of his 21 year managerial career.
Lookman has scored 30 goals in two seasons at Atalanta, but Gasparini admitted he has been surprised by the player’s development in Bergamo.
He said: “We had a senior manager at Atalanta who had worked at Leicester and saw that we had the opportunity to bring him in. We thought he was a possible useful player for us, but no-one ever imagined that he could really make this much progress. He wasn’t overly-prolific in England but I changed his position a little bit and played him in a slightly more attacking role – and now he has achieved something that will remain in the annals of football history. “I’ve always had the confidence in my ability to create and score goals, to help my team-mates and assist them,” said Lookman, whose hat-trick was only second scored for an Italian side in the final of a major European competition after Pierino Prati for Milan against Ajax in the 1969 European Cup.
“The past few years I’ve been able to take my game to a new level on a more consistent basis. Maybe it would have come earlier, but it’s come now and I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made. This is just the beginning and I hope for more nights like this and to get better and better. That’s the key.”
