Ademola Lookman arrived in Dublin at the start of this week having lost the AFCON final with Nigeria and the Coppa Italia final with Atalanta already in 2024.
“They always say third time lucky,” he said with a grin and the match ball tucked under his right arm after a career-defining night as Xabi Alonso’s all-conquering Bayer Leverkusen were upstaged on Wednesday night.
Atalanta – nicknamed La Dea [The Goddess] – have their crowning moment and only a second trophy in their 116-year history – six decades on from lifting the Coppa Italia in 1963.
Alonso had no response to the suffocating press.
His forlorn defender Edmond Tapsoba will have sleepless nights all summer long, exposed by the pace of Lookman, who was hoisted into the air by his team-mates two years to the day since his final Premier League appearance for Leicester against Southampton.
Defender Sead Kolasinac said: “Before the game, I went into [Berat] Djimsiti’s room, and we both had the feeling he could decide the game tonight. We know all about his quality.
“I don’t know how many times after the game I told him, ‘thank you’ because he gave us the trophy with his hat-trick. We’re super happy to have him in our team.”
In England, he had been classed as the nearly man, bouncing around loan spells.
It was a nomadic existence.
But on one night in Dublin, Lookman scored three times as many goals as he managed in two Premier League seasons with Everton.
That solitary strike came in his debut against Manchester City – a memorable 4-0 win to inflict the biggest defeat, still, in Pep Guardiola’s managerial career.
It wasn’t then a sign of things to come, but Gian Piero Gasperini and his Atalanta staff saw something in him. Like Lookman, Kolasinac and others in this band of journeymen, his is a tale of sporting perseverance.
It is a triumph as much for club servants Rafael Toloi, Marten De Roon, Hans Hateboer, Mario Pasalic and for Djimsiti as it is for Lookman and for Gasperini, who became the fourth oldest manager to win a major European trophy after Raymond Goethals, Jupp Heynckes and Sir Alex Ferguson.
He had previously lost three times in the Coppa Italia final with Atalanta, finally striking gold at the fourth time of asking.
“I am hugely proud for all of Italy because it was a cursed trophy,” said Gasperini, who has led the club since 2016. “Having won it with Atalanta is perhaps one of those footballing fairytales that rarely crop up.
“It gives hope for meritocracy. It doesn’t come down to Super Leagues. You can show faith in other teams without big bills and budgets.”
Gasperini came close to being sacked after just five matches during his first season in 2016/17 but unlike his short spell at Inter Milan, the owners kept the faith.
They were rewarded and he was made an honorary citizen of Bergamo in September 2019, but now there will be calls for a statue of the 66-year-old in the Piazza Vecchia following the first trophy of his 21-year managerial career.
Lookman has scored 30 goals in two seasons at Atalanta, but Gasparini admitted he has been surprised by the player’s development in Bergamo.
He said: “We had a senior manager at Atalanta who had worked at Leicester and saw that we had the opportunity to bring him in.
“We thought he was a possible useful player for us, but no-one ever imagined that he could really make this much progress.
“He wasn’t overly-prolific in England but I changed his position a little bit and played him in a slightly more attacking role – and now he has achieved something that will remain in the annals of football history.”
Gasperini is getting the best out of a man who learned his craft playing Sunday League football for Waterloo FC and began his professional career with Charlton Athletic.
Lookman came from a deprived area, growing up on his Wandsworth estate and having gone to school in Peckham. He has carried those memories of hardship with him.
During the brilliant documentary ‘South of the River’, he told of how he would eat at his friends’ houses after playing football, knowing there was no food on the table at home.
The struggles of his mother gave him “added fuel in the fire” burning inside him to make it as a professional footballer.
In a period of complete chaos at the Addicks a decade ago, it was the club’s former striker Jason Euell who made sure Lookman was brought from his humble origins to the Valley.
Euell oversaw his journey from U18s to U23s and onto Charlton’s first team and had a huge influence on his development.
Many have played a role in Lookman’s route to stardom from playing on the streets and in the cages of South London, and the man himself admits it has been a difficult journey.
Having struggled to shine at Everton and RB Leipzig after leaving Charlton, he had loan spells at Fulham and Leicester before finding consistency in Italy under Gasperini.
For his Europa League final exploits, the 26-year-old earned a rare 10 rating from L’Equipe – only the 18th handed out by the French publication.
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“I’ve always had the confidence in my ability to create and score goals, to help my team-mates and assist them,” said Lookman, whose hat-trick was only second scored for an Italian side in the final of a major European competition after Pierino Prati for Milan against Ajax in the 1969 European Cup.
“The past few years I’ve been able to take my game to a new level on a more consistent basis. Maybe it would have come earlier.
“But it’s come now and I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made. This is just the beginning and I hope for more nights like this and to get better and better. That’s the key.”
Much of the focus heading into the Europa League final was on Leverkusen’s 51-game unbeaten record and their treble quest – and rightly so.
But Gasperini has turned Atalanta into the best-run club in Italy, and Lookman’s story is just as emotive.
One of his former youth coaches spoke in moving terms to TNT Sports at full-time, saying: “We’ve been dreaming about this for a long time since he was a kid at Waterloo.
“The coaches there – Arnie Reynolds, Des Collier, Norman Dawkins… all the people that worked with Ademola and have got him to where he is. Tonight was a dream come true. I cried when the third goal went in.
“I’m so pleased for Ade. He’s a quiet lad who works hard. Sometimes, he’s misunderstood because of his quietness but he always wants to learn, get better and to reach the top.”
Having brought glory to the Goddess, Lookman is grateful for his struggles. It has made him the man he is today, the toast of Bergamo.
