da prosport bet： The Bergamaschi showed why they're the best pound-for-pound team in the world by stunning Xabi Alonso & Co. in Dublin
da 888： Bayer Leverkusen have been beaten! At last! And by Atalanta of all teams! The Bergamaschi hadn't won a trophy for 61 years, but on a glorious night in Dublin, Gian Piero Gasperini's miracle-men stunned the footballing world by routing Leverkusen 3-0 in the final of the Europa League.
Ademola Lookman was the star of the show, scoring a historic hat-trick, with each goal arguably even better than the one that preceded it – but, in truth, this was yet another triumph of the collective by Atalanta.
Ederson and Teun Koopmeiners were immense in midfield, Davide Zappacosta surprisingly proved the best wing-back on the pitch, while Gasperini subjected Xabi Alonso to a tactical masterclass, with the underdogs completely dominating their undefeated treble-chasing opponents, and showing once again why they're best pound-for-pound team in the world.
GOAL picks out the winners and losers from a stunning upset at the Aviva Stadium…
GettyWINNER: Ademola Lookman
Before Wednesday, Lookman was probably best known to your average Premier League follower for his Panenka penalty fail while on loan at Fulham. Now, he's being rightly lauded in the country where he was born and raised as the on-field protagonist of one of the season's biggest success stories.
The Nigeria international wasn't just decisive in Dublin, though. He also wrote his name into the history books. When he opened the scoring by embarrassing Exequiel Palacios with a brilliant blindside run, he became just the third Nigerian to score in a major European final, after Alex Iwobi and Joe Aribo. With his sublime second strike, he became the first African to score twice in a UEFA decider. Then, with his thunderous third, he became the first player to score a hat-trick in this fixture since Jupp Heynckes all the way back in 1975.
This wasn't really about records, though. It was about perseverance. Lookman's childhood was tough. He was playing Sunday League football when Charlton Athletic picked him up as a 16-year-old. He never quite made the grade in the Premier League or the Bundesliga.
But he kept going. He never lost faith in himself and joining Atalanta has proved the making of the man.
"In the past two years I've been able to take my game to a whole new level," he told UEFA. "Maybe it could have come earlier, but it's come now. And this is just the beginning. I hope for more nights like this and to just keep getting better and better."
AdvertisementGettyLOSER: Xabi Alonso
Turns out Bayer Leverkusen are not infallible – and neither is their brilliant young coach. Alonso has got so much right since taking charge of the German club just over 18 months ago; pretty much everything, in fact. But he got his starting line-up all wrong against Atalanta, with his decision to start with Victor Boniface on the bench particularly puzzling.
Worse still, Alonso seemed totally taken by surprise by Gasperini's game plan. He acknowledged beforehand that Atalanta would "cause us problems" with their "intensity" – but Leverkusen were overwhelmed, perhaps because their coach had also warned them to expect a "wait-and-see approach" from their opponents.
Whatever the truth, Alonso was given a tactical lesson at the Aviva Stadium; the one positive is that the Spaniard is likely to learn an awful lot from it.
GettyWINNER: Gian Piero Gasperini
Finally! Gasperini has finally got his hands on the piece of silverware his stellar work at Atalanta over the past eight years so richly deserved. People can talk about Pep Guardiola as the best manager in the world all they want; the job the Catalan has done at state-sponsored Manchester City does not even compare to the wondrous work done by Gasperini in Bergamo.
Since narrowly avoiding the sack just five games into his tenure, the gruff 66-year-old has turned little Atalanta into the biggest overachievers in world football. Best of all, he's done it by playing the most fantastic football. Wednesday was Atalanta in microcosm: offensive, industrious and utterly united from start to finish.
Gasperini has always insisted that trophies shouldn't be the only barometer of success in modern football – and he's right – but, a week after yet another heartbreaking Coppa Italia final defeat, it was genuinely joyous to see the brilliantly-managed and wonderfully well-run Bergamaschi finally earn a tangible reward for continually defying the odds.
As Gasperini said, "I think we wrote history tonight – also for the way we won it."
Getty ImagesWINNER: Bergamo
The Covid-19 pandemic affected the whole world – but few cities suffered as much as Bergamo (at least initially). The northern Italian city was devastated by the virus. Obituaries ran for page after page in the local press. Military trucks were required to cope with the volume of bodies being transported to the city's morgues.
And one of the greatest nights in Atalanta's history played a tragic role. Some 25,000 people travelled down to Milan for a Champions League game in February 2020 that was later described as "a biological bomb" because of the way in which the assembly of so many people inside San Siro inadvertently facilitated the spread of the virus.
What followed were desperately dark days but, through it all, the club remained close to the city's heart, a symbol of hope amid all of the despair. In that context, the scenes in the Atalanta end and back in Bergamo on Wednesday were just so touching.
"We'll never be able to do away with all the pain of the pandemic," Gasperini acknowledged, "but we have put a smile on the faces of the Bergamasco people."