Atalanta’s performance Bayer Leverkusen that nobody’s perfect

Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen side were on the edge of making history again but only for Ademola Lookman and Atalanta to bring them back to reality and end their unbeaten 51-game streak to take home the Europa League.

By Mark Ogden

May 22, 2024 10:25 PM

DUBLIN, Ireland — It was supposedly Michael Jordan who once said, “I’ve never lost a game, I just ran out of time,” but as much as Xabi Alonso and his Bayer Leverkusen players might want the same to be true of their failure to complete an unprecedented unbeaten treble, the reality is that they ran out of ideas long before the clock and Atalanta beat them in the UEFA Europa League final.

Leverkusen were the team that could not lose under Alonso during the current season. The unbeaten champions of 34 games of Bundesliga year, DFB-Pokal finalists and at the end of an European competition without one loss, in any competition they were trying becoming the only team after European club competitions began in 1955-56 to dominate the table without losing a single game.

Before they made it to Dublin hoping to complete the second part of an unbeaten treble been unbeaten for 51 matches in all competitions, which was a total of 361 days, which spanned back to the 3-0 loss to VfL Bochum in May 2023. However, their streak ended abruptly by a defeat of 3-0 in the match against Gian Piero Gasperini’s underrated Atalanta. The harsh reality for Leverkusen was that it wasn’t even far from being a win.

(HTML0) – streaming through ESPNplus: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)

From beginning to end, Atalanta dominated. Alonso had made a comment prior to the match about how the team of Gasperini likes to drop back and play longer, but if expected the same strategy at Aviva Stadium, he was wrong. Aviva Stadium, it was a massive mistake, because Atalanta was relentlessly pressing during the final third of the pitch, forcing Leverkusen to make mistake after mistake. The second part of Leverkusen’s triple was never in the cards.

History was written in Dublin however it was atalanta’s Ademola Lookingman and not Leverkusen who earned his name in the history books by becoming the first person to score the hat trick at a Europe League/UEFA cup final since Jupp Heynckes’s appearance in 1975 for Borussia Monchengladbach in 1975.

The last time a player made it to a hat trick at any European final played by an Italian club before AC Milan‘s Pierino Prati scored it during the 4-1 victory over Ajax during the 1968-1969 European Cup/ UEFA Champions League final. That’s why Lookman who left the field holding the ball from the match and his winning medal, deserves all the praise he’ll get in the next few days.

Atalanta are a fantastic team that is coached superbly by Gasperini. They have swept aside Napoli in Italy and Roma and Napoli in Italy as well as Sporting CP and Liverpool in Europe this season. They’ve been able to secure Champions League qualification for next season, and are now become the first and the only team to take loss on Leverkusen this season.

“I think we wrote history, also for the way we won it,” Gasperini stated. “It was absolutely amazing. We beat Liverpool, Sporting [Lisbon] who took the title. When we played Liverpool the first time, they were to be in the Premier League. Then, they became they are the German champions. Incredible. The boys performed with awe. it was a remarkable performance.”

Although it was Atalanta’s night of their hometown city of Bergamo would have believed that this would be the result. Leverkusen have been extremely efficient this season. They entered the final with a goal scored in an interval of 90 minutes on seventeen occasions. And when they’ve faced defeat they have come out of the flames.

Since March, they’ve been able to salvage draws by scoring goal-scoring stops in stoppage time at Roma (97th minute), Stuttgart (96th), Borussia Dortmund (97) and Qarabag (92). They made defeat a victory over Hoffenheim by scoring goals in the 88th minute and 91st minute as well as during the home portion of the Europa League tie against Qarabag They came back from 2-0 and won 3-1 with goals at the 72nd, 93rd and the 98th minute.

Then when they fell behind 2-0 after the break, following goals by Lookman in the 26th and 12th seconds — each caused by poor defensive play that was triggered by the aggressive play of Atalanta There was no anxiety among the players or their fans. They had been in this position a number of times before and managed to get away.

However, while there was not a sense of panic There was also not a sense of urgency. Alonso’s players appeared heavy-headed, without a sense of. They didn’t even have a opportunity in spite of Florian Wirtz trying to get his team going and bring them back to action. Similar to how Liverpool were shown to be dull and uninteresting by Atalanta in their 3-0 loss in the quarterfinals at Anfield in the quarterfinal’s opening game, Leverkusen fell into the same situation and came out looking rather normal.

“It wasn’t lost in terms of attitude, it was a football thing,” Alonso declared. “It happens that way, it’s football. Today was not meant to happen. They were much better.

“It’s the first time we’ve lost this season, therefore it’s an exercise in what we do since we’ll be playing a huge game scheduled for Saturday. The usual way to handle it is that the first loss occurs earlier in the season however, when it occurs in a major game it can be a bit painful. However, we should make use of this experience to our advantage because it’s football. it’s normal to not lose the first game of that 52nd match.

“It’s extraordinary what we’ve accomplished. The day is difficult but it’s well-deserved too.”

Despite the feelings of hurt that are being felt by Leverkusen the season has been awe-inspiring and they have the potential to create the record books by scoring an unbeaten record by beating Kaiserslautern which was a mid-table team within the 2nd tier of. Bundesliga in this year’s DFB-Pokal Final at Berlin this Saturday.

Being unstoppable on a front domestically is the stuff of dreams that are impossible to achieve and yet Leverkusen are just 90 minutes away from achieving it. They were also just 90 minutes away from glory in the game against Atalanta and like Michael Jordan, they lost just before they ran out of time.