Bayer Leverkusen’s 51-game unbeaten run came to an end as Nigerian international, Ademola Lookman, scored a stunning hat-trick for Atalanta, who won the Europa League final 3-0.
Xabi Alonso’s team simply ran out of steam after a phenomenal season with Lookman pulling the strings of the game.
He opened the scoring with a back-post finish on 12 minutes before doubling the advantage with a stunning curling effort 14 minutes later.
He wrapped up his famous treble with a powerful left-footed strike that flew into the top corner meaning he became the first player to ever score a hat-trick in a Europa League final.
For Atalanta boss Gian Piero Gasperini, this was the first major trophy of his long career.
This victory also gave Atalanta only the second trophy in their 116-year history, over six decades after the Bergamo based side had won the Coppa Italia.
Leverkusen did not seem to show up for the game as they were clearly not prepared for Atalanta’s high press that forced early mistakes and set the tone of the contest.
Granit Xhaka was guilty of losing possession for Matteo Ruggeri to set up a headed opportunity for Gianluca Scamacca.
If that was a clear warning sign and Leverkusen did not heed it, Atalanta were ahead after 12 minutes.
Teun Koopmeiners pounced on a partially cleared corner and slipped a delightful pass inside to Davide Zappacosta, who pulled it back into a dangerous area.
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The ball travelled across the box and, with Exequiel Palacios back on his heels and unaware of imminent danger, Lookman stole in to convert with a firm side-foot.
Matters got worse for Leverkusen after 26 minutes with their failure to maintain possession and Lookman took care of a loose ball before slipping it through the legs of Xhaka and finding the net from 20 yards with an unstoppable curling shot.
Leverkusen should have halved the deficit when Alex Grimaldo was played through and Musso had advanced too far.
It was not a difficult task for Grimaldo to chip Musso but his effort failed to clear the grateful goalkeeper.
Leverkusen were the comeback kings of European football having scored 10 equalisers in the 90th minute or injury time, including two in one game, in 2024.
But, the recently crowned German champions had no answer this time as Scamacca found Lookman on the left with defenders desperately retreating to stop him.
However, Lookman bought some space with a step over and planted a vicious left-foot shot past Kovar to start the Atalanta celebrations.
Atalanta end their season with two Serie A matches, the first of which is at home to Torino on Sunday.
They then host Fiorentina on June 2.
Bayern Leverkusen’s final match of the season is against second-tier Kaiserslautern in the DFB Pokal final in Berlin on Saturday.
Atalanta however broke several European records with their win over Leverkusen:
1. Atalanta have won their first ever major European trophy – they’re the 10th different Italian side to do so, second only to sides from England (13).
2. Lookman’s hat-trick for Atalanta was the sixth to be scored in a major UEFA final. It was the first since Jupp Heynckes’ for Borussia Mönchengladbach against FC Twente in 1975, which was the only other one to be scored in a UEFA Cup/Europa League final.
3. Aged 66 years and 117 days, Atalanta manager Gian Piero Gasperini is the fourth oldest manager to win a major European trophy after Raymond Goethals (71y 231d, 1993 UEFA Champions League), Jupp Heynckes (68y 16d, 2013 UEFA Champions League) and Alex Ferguson (66y 142d, 2008 UEFA Champions League).
4. This was the biggest margin of defeat for a German team in a major European final match since the 1993 UEFA Cup, when Borussia Dortmund lost 3-0 to Juventus in the second leg. In single-game only finals, it’s the biggest margin of defeat for a German team since Eintracht Frankfurt lost 7-3 to Real Madrid in the 1960 European Cup.
5. Bayer Leverkusen suffered their first defeat since their final game of the 2022-23 season (0-3 vs VfL Bochum) – they had been unbeaten in all 51 of their matches in all competitions this term before tonight (W42 D9).
