EUROPA LEAGUE
Has anyone ever scored a hat-trick in a European final? Champions League, Europa League
Ademola Lookman wrote his name into the history books as he smashed 3 amazing goals past Bayer Leverkusen in the 2024 Europa League final.
All good things must come to an end and Ademola Lookman must have had it written on the back of his hand ahead of the Europa League final. Atalanta thrashed Bayer Leverkusen in Dublin and Lookman was the star, scoring three goals past Kovar to end the unbeaten run of the Germans.
Lookman’s goals not only crushed the dreams of Xabi Alonso’s side, but they also saw him write his name in the history books.
Has anyone ever scored a hat-trick in the Europa League final?
No. Until Lookman’s trio of strikes, nobody had scored three 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 game was Eden Hazard, for Chelsea, way back in 2019.
Has anyone ever scored a hat-trick in the Champions League final?
The story is not the same in the Champions League. If we travel back in time, all the way to the 1960s, we will find that Real Madrid’s Ferenc Puskas scored two hat-tricks in European Cup finals. He scored three against Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1959-60 season and then another against Benfica in the 1961-62 campaign.
The 1959-60 season was doubly hard on Eintracht, who conceded another hat-trick in the same game, with Alfredo Di Stéfano bagging three. In fact, the game ended 7-3 to the Spanish side, and Puskas actually ended the game with 4 goals to his name.
the only other name in history who has scored three in the Champions League is Pierino Prati, who netted a hat-trick for AC Milan against Ajax in the 1968-69 season. Prati sealed his hat trick with 15 minutes remaining against the Dutch side to seal a 4-1 win.