Ademola Lookman: The boy from Wandsworth who brought glory to the goddess

Atalanta’s Nigerian forward #11 Ademola Lookman celebrates scoring his team’s third goal during the UEFA Europa League final football match between Atalanta and Bayer Leverkusen at the Dublin Arena stadium, in Dublin, on May 22, 2024. (Photo by Ben Stansall / AFP)

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