Atalanta vs Bayer Leverkusen LIVE: Ademola Lookman hat-trick wins Europa League final for Italian side

20 mins: Some nice one-touch passing by Leverkusen ends with Atalanta captain Berat Djimsiti catching Exequiel Palacios late and earning him the game’s first booking.

15 mins: That goal will open up this match. Granit Xhaka recovers the ball in midfield and looks for a forward pass. None of his teammates are available and he gets swarmed and loses possession.

Bayer Leverkusen need to come up with something extra.

12 mins: Matej Kovar stays put as Ademola Lookman delivers a corner ball. Bayer Leverkusen deal with the initial ball but it comes out to Teun Koopmeiners on the right wing. He slips a short pass to Davide Zappacosta who weaves his way into the box.

A squared pass comes to the back post where Lookman arrives and sidefoots his effort into the back of the net!

Atalanta draw first blood in Dublin!

9 mins: Now it’s Atalanta’s turn to take a free kick in a dangerous area. Teun Koopmeiners delivers the ball into the box but can’t find a teammate and Leverkusen take back control.

It’s fed to Granit Xhaka who kicks on for a counter-attack before misplacing a pass and losing possession again.

6 mins: Oh! Bayer win a free kick over on the right side of the pitch and have a good opportunity to get the ball into the box. Florian Wirtz has the honour but completely misses up his cross and doesn’t get the ball past the first defender.

At the other end of the pitch Ederson attempts to slip Ademola Lookman into the penalty area but Matej Kovar sprints off his line and scoops up the ball before Lookman can get there.

3 mins: A first attempt to get forward from Bayer Leverkusen sees then work the ball down the left wing with a quick one-two. Piero Hincapie then releases a forward pass and looks ot play Amine Adli in behind the lines.

Berat Djimsiti shuffles across, holds the forward at bay then clears the danger.

Atalanta get the ball rolling and feed it back to the defensive line. It’s punted long but gets easily cleared by Leverkusen. This Europa League final is underway.

The players follow the officials out into the stadium. The Europa League anthem plays around the speakers and the crowd raise the noise levels.

Kick off is up next...

John O’Shea brings the Europa League trophy out onto the pitch at the Aviva Stadium. The ground is packed, flags are flying and the atmosphere has ramped right up.

The players are waiting in the tunnel ahead of this final. We’re in for a cracking game.

As Xabi Alonso arrived into Dublin, he was of course asked whether it was good to be back. The Bayer Leverkusen manager came to Ireland for a summer when 14 years old to learn English, and it only fosters the sense of a figure coming full circle.

There’s a personal history here, and there could well be a football history through a series of doubles. Alonso may ensure an unbeaten European campaign in Wednesday’s Europa League final, against Atalanta, to go with an unbeaten league campaign. There’s still Saturday’s DFB-Pokal final to come, and that is against second-tier side Kaiserslautern.

The Basque is so close to an unprecedented unbeaten treble, and what would be one of the great football achievements.