HAT-TRICK HERO

Ademola Lookman wrote his name into European football's history books with a hat-trick in the Europa League final

- Oluwashina Okeleji

For one night only, Ademola Lookman was the best footballer in the world.

The setting was Dublin, and the occasion was the Europa League final. While all of the talk leading into it was Bayer Leverkusen’s fairy-tale unbeaten run, their opponents, Atalanta – who had already dispatched both Liverpool and Marseille – were determined to write their own story.

Lookman, who most Italian publications had as starting on the bench on the morning of the final, was cast in the lead role. The 26-year-old was immense, thrice striking at the heart of the Germans, each goal better than the last, and in doing so entering the exalted company of some of the sport’s greatest players: Alfredo Di Stefano, Pierino Prati, Ferenc Puskas and Jupp Heynckes – the only other men to score a hat-trick in the final of a UEFA club competition.

It was a redemptive end to a challenging second season in Italy for the Charlton Athletic youth product. The 2022-23 campaign, his first after arriving from Bundesliga side RB Leipzig for a fee of €9m rising to €15m, was defined by instant impact; although truncated by injury in the run-in, he finished the season as Atalanta’s top scorer in Serie A and was named their Player of the Season, signposting better things to come.

That promise did not quite materialise. Or perhaps in light of events in Dublin, it is more appropriate to say it only did so belatedly, albeit on the biggest stage and with the highest of stakes. In the intervening period, Lookman underwent something of a refining under the fiery gaze of Gian Piero Gasperini, a coach famed not only for punching well above the weight of his teams, but for empowering strikers like few others can.