All good things must come to an end, and Ademola Lookman must have written that on the back of his hand ahead of the Europa League final. Atalanta crushes Bayer Leverkusen In Dublin and Lookman was the star, scoring three goals past Kovar to Putting an end to the Germans' unbeaten record.
Lookman's goals did not only shatter the dreams of Xabi Alonso's teamBut they also saw him write his name in the history books.
Has anyone ever scored a hat-trick in a Europa League final?
No, until Lookman's hat-trick, no one had scored three goals in the final of Europe's second-tier club competition.. The UEFA Europa League website states that the last person to score in a Europa League match was Chelsea's Eden Hazard in 2019.
Has anyone ever scored a hat-trick in a Champions League final?
The story is not the same in the Champions League. If we go back to the 1960s, we will find that Real Madrid's Ferenc Puskas scored two hat-tricks in the European Cup finals. He scored three goals against Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1959-60 season, then another goal against Benfica in the 1961-62 season.
The 1959-60 season was doubly difficult for Eintracht, who conceded another hat-trick in the same match, with Alfredo Di Stefano got three goals. Indeed, the match ended with a score of 7-3 for the Spanish side Puskas actually finished the match with 4 goals to his name.
The only other name in history to have scored three goals in the Champions League is… Pierino Prati, who scored a hat-trick for Milan against Ajax in the 1968-1969 season. Prati scored a hat-trick 15 minutes before the end of the match against the Dutch team to seal a 4-1 win.
