Ademola Lookman lights up the Invincibles! Winners and losers as awesome Atalanta batter Xabi Alonso and Bayer Leverkusen in Europa League final

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 now he’s an Atalanta icon – and a Europa League legend.

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.

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 it was genuinely joyous to see the brilliantly-managed and wonderfully well-run Bergamaschi finally earn a tangible reward for continually defying the odds.

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 truly a joy to behold.

This time, there was no dramatic comeback. Leverkusen just couldn’t get back into the game, let alone turn it around. Consequently, one of the greatest undefeated runs in football history – 51 games – is over. And it’s hard not to feel sorry for Leverkusen, who have thrilled fans from all across their globe with their superb play and last-gasp heroics all season long.

Still, Leverkusen have already made history. No side had ever before gone through an entire Bundesliga season unbeaten and it should not be forgotten that they ended Bayern Munich’s run of 11 consecutive titles in the process.

What’s more, they still have another trophy to play for, with Alonso’s history-makers looking to complete a domestic double when they play Kaiserslautern in the DFB-Pokal final on Saturday. So, while the unblemished record is gone, Leverkusen still have so much to be proud of – and so much more to look forward to with this terrific set of players and their terrific coach.

As Jurgen Klopp once said, let’s talk about six, baby! Italy had already secured one of the extra Champions League spots for next season because of their clubs’ performances in continental competition, taking their tally to five. But now they’ve got another one, with Atalanta’s victory in Dublin meaning that Roma, who currently sit sixth in Serie A, are also celebrating!

The Italian top flight still has many infrastructural and administrative issues, but its teams have done the country proud over the past couple of seasons – and with far fewer resources than many of their rivals.

So, when Gasperini next says that Serie A is “the most difficult league in the world”, maybe people will agree with him for once!