Thursday, May 23, 2024, 02:00
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Nothing is eternal in football, least of all victory, despite the fact that Xabi Alonso has managed to lead his Bayer Leverkusen to 51 consecutive games without losing, achieving the club’s first Bundesliga title in its 119-year history and breaking several records both in Germany as in Europe. That halo of unbeatability that surrounded the team was broken yesterday abruptly and painfully because the German team went to lose its first game in the Europa League final against an Atalanta that was close to perfection and that had in the Nigerian Ademola Lookman, author of the three goals, to his executioner.
ATALANTA
Musso, Zappacosta (Hateboer, 84 minutes), Djimsiti, Hien, Kolasinac (Scalvini, 46 minutes), Ruggeri (Tolói, 91 minutes), Ederson, Koopmeiners, De Ketelaere (Pasalic, 57 minutes), Lookman and Scamacca
3
–
0
B. LEVERKUSEN
Kovar, Stanisic (Boniface, min. 46), Tapsoba, Tah, Hincapié, Grimaldo (Hlozec, min. 68), Palacios (Andrich, min. 68), Xhaka, Frimpong (Tella, min. 81), Wirtz (Schick, min. 81) and Adli.
Goles
1-0: min. 12, Lookman. 2-0: min. 26, Lookman. 3-0: min. 75, Lookman
Referee Istvan Kovacs (Romania). He warned Djimsiti, Scamacca, Wirtz, Zappacosta, Tapsoba, Koopmeiners and Andrich.
Dublin Arena Incidents. 47,135 spectators.
The dream of having a perfect season died yesterday in Dublin. La Dea, whose greatest European success was the semi-finals of the now-defunct Cup Winners’ Cup in 1988 when it played in Serie B, showed why before a final no one wants to be the favorite, which, for obvious reasons, fell to Bayer Leverkusen yesterday. a stranger.
Atalanta had a magnificent and brave first half. With aggressive pressure he neutralized his rival’s intentions, causing numerous errors that sowed doubt, an unequivocal symptom that defeat could embrace Xabi Alonso’s team for the first time.
The arrivals of those from Bergamo near the Kovar area began to be common, with a first warning from Scamacca, whose header was repelled by the post.
Atalanta’s daring approach was rewarded when Zapacosta went in from the right wing and put a low cross into the area that Lookman finished into the back of the net ahead of Palacios.
The striker born in London and who was U-20 world champion with England before deciding to defend the Nigerian shirt in 2022, began a recital that reached its climax with the play of the second goal, an action that started Xaka and which ended with a shot from the edge of the area that Kovar could not reach. The defeat began to take shape, while Xabi Alonso tried to find solutions to overcome the pressure posed by Gasperini.
At the restart, the German team was a I want and I can’t. Alonso moved the bench but the comeback this time did not come. Lookman’s third goal did, which definitively buried the myth of the unbeatable Leverkusen.
Atalanta, after the finals lost last year by Inter, Roma and Fiorentina, returns its pride to Italian football and rounded off the project started in 2016 with the arrival of Gianpiero Gasperini, whom Xabi Alonso went to congratulate before the delivery ceremony of medals in which he received the consolation of the president of UEFA, Aleksander Ceferin.
With no time for regrets, Xabi Alonso will face the final of the German Cup against Kaiserslautern on Saturday (8:00 p.m.).
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2024-05-23 00:00:00
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