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

Atalanta XI: Musso; Djimsiti, Hien, Kolasinac; Zappacosta, Ederson, Koopmeiners, Ruggeri; De Ketelaere. Scamacca, Lookman

Bayer Leverkusen XI: Kovar; Stanisic, Tah, Tapsoba; Frimpong, Xhaka, Palacios, Hincapie; Wirtz, Adli, Grimaldo

“I think it’s down to the consistency and our performance level, the mental level, our level of focus. In terms of our mentality and level of focus, the team has suffered virtually no disasters or a single bad moment during any game, and that has allowed us to have such an exceptional season.

“But everything has to be about performance and the mentality we are building.

“We have been competitive in every game whether we were playing well or poorly. We played well for the majority of the games, but we didn’t give up in the ones where we didn’t play well.

“That says a lot about the commitment of this team when it comes to preparing for every game. We didn’t take any game for granted, we prepared very well and that requires a lot of physical, footballing and mental effort too.”

The line-ups for tonight’s Europa League final will be revealed shortly as build-up to the clash in Dublin continues. Will they be any major changes in personnel?

Seems unlikely.

Bayer Leverkusen are unbeaten in all 12 Uefa Europa League games this season (W9 D3) and are looking to become the fourth side to win the trophy unbeaten, along with Chelsea in 2018-19, Villarreal in 2020-21 and Eintracht Frankfurt in 2021-22, the latter two of which did so in a penalty shootout in the final.

Gian Piero Gasperini has been a transformative figure for Atalanta over the last eight years and his reward is to coach his team in a first European final.

He said: “ It feels good. It’s a great achievement and source of satisfaction, achieved with a really good season from this whole team. Is it the highest point of my career?

“Yes, in terms of accomplishment and prestige, absolutely. In terms of gratification, fortunately I’ve had quite a few, although perhaps not on the same level.

“I don’t think winning a cup is necessarily always part of the parameters by which success is judged. Everyone has their own goals.

“When you manage to exceed them by far, as has happened at Atalanta, you still have to be very satisfied. If we also manage to add a cup, of course, we’ll be even more satisfied.”

“When I was a player, I was very interested in the game, in the opposition, in the preparation, and wondering why things happened,” Alonso explained

“As a midfielder, it has helped me to develop and expand my knowledge of the game. I started coaching the Real Madrid Under-13s, then I spent three years coaching the Real Sociedad B team, which helped me a lot, and now I’m facing my first professional experience here at Leverkusen, which is currently going quite well.

“It’s very important to create both confidence and reliability, to bring the squad together, to develop a good day-to-day dynamic; all of this reinforces the players’ commitment to achieve our objectives.

“Then, of course, you have to convince each player and give them an idea they can commit to. You need to be close to your players to understand them because then you know how to demand more from them.

“They will make mistakes, but you can’t be telling them off all the time. You also need to be a great psychologist.”

This will be Atalanta’s first ever European final, becoming the 11th different Italian team to reach a final and first to do so for a first time since Lazio in the 1998 Uefa Cup (lost 3-0 to Inter).

This will be 60 years and 261 days since their first European game in September 1963, the longest wait for a side to play in their first a European final from their first game, a record which will be eclipsed in one week by Olympiakos (64 years, 259 days – 1959-2024).

Bayer Leverkusen have reached their third Uefa European final, also featuring in the two-legged 1988 Uefa Cup final against Espanyol (lost 0-3 first leg, won 3-0 second leg, won on pens) and 2002 Uefa Champions League final against Real Madrid (lost 2-1).

This is the eighth major European final between a German side and Italian side and first since the 2010 Uefa Champions League final, won 2-0 by Inter against Bayern Munich.

In the Uefa Cup/Europa League, it’s the first since 1997 when FC Schalke 04 were crowned champions over two legs against Inter via a penalty shootout.