Ademola Lookman etched himself into Atalanta folklore with a Europa League final hat-trick that he says didn’t catch him by surprise – although boss Gian Piero Gasperini admitted nobody could have expected his progress.
The London-born Nigeria winger became only the sixth player to score a hat-trick in a European final – the first since Jupp Heynckes for Borussia Monchengladbach in the 1975 Uefa Cup – with all three goals in the Italian side’s winover Bayer Leverkusen in Dublin.
That is the Bayer Leverkusen side led by Xabi Alonso, which had not lost a single game of football for 361 days.
Lookman, 26, had never managed double figures in a season for Charlton, Everton, RB Leipzig, Fulham or Leicester.
