Atalanta, with a hat-trick from Nigerian striker Ademola Lookman, won their first Europa League and ended Bayer Leverkusen’s run of 51 games without losing this season by win 3-0 this Wednesday, in Dublin.
Lookman secured the triumph with two goals in the first half (at 12 and 26 minutes), before closing the score in the final stretch of the match (75′) and securing a resounding victory, despite Leverkusen arriving as favourites.
This Europa League trophy will accompany in the Atalanta gallery the other cup that the club won in its history, the Italian Cup in the distant year of 1963, when many of the current ‘tifosi’ were not even born.
The path taken to the title gives even more shine to the glory achieved by Atalanta, as in previous rounds they eliminated traditional teams such as Olympique de Marseille, Liverpool and Sporting de Lisboa.
“You can’t be content with just defending yourself in a game like this. We knew they [Bayer Leverkusen] They are very strong in attack, but perhaps not so strong when we force them to defend themselves. Everything went well from the start”, celebrated Atalanta’s iconic coach, Gian Piero Gasperini.
Wednesday’s joy also erases the disappointment of the defeat to Juventus in the Italian Cup final a week ago.
For Italian football, it is the first Europa League title since it was renamed that way in the 2009-2010 season. The last team in the country to lift the trophy was Parma, in 1999, when the tournament was still called the UEFA Cup.
Source: Gazetaesportiva
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