Ademola Lookman made the headlines recently following his Europa final heroics, which saw him score a hattrick to help Atalanta clinch their first European trophy.
Ademola Lookman’s career
An adventrous club career journey
Lookman, who has had an adventrous football journey, started his career at Charlton Athletic’s academy before moving to Everton 2017 for an undisclosed fee, reported as an initial £7.5m potentially rising to £11m with add-ons. The Super Eagles winger made his debut for the Toffees in a 4-0 victory over Manchester City, coming on as a substitute for Ross Barkely in the 90th minute to score the team’s fourth goal.
He later played for RB Leipzig, Fulham, and Leicester City, before moving to his current club, Atalanta in 2022 on a four-year contract for a reported fee of €15 million, as per Wikipedia.
Since joining Atalanta Lookman has scored a total of 30 goals and provided 16 assists in 76 appearnces, including his latest Europa League final hattrick against Bayer Leverkusen.
International career
After previously representing England at youth level, Lookman eventually switched international allegiance to Nigeria, making his debut in a goaless draw against Ghana in the first leg of the FIFA 2022 World Cup playoff.
Since his National team debut, the Atalanta winger has scored six goals in 21 caps for Nigeria, including three goals in the knockout stages of the 2023 AFCON tournament.
Three defining moments in Ademola Lookman’s career
Sports Buddy takes a look at three defining moments in Ademola Lookman’s career, comprising of two highs and one low moment.
The highs
Europa Final heroics
Lookman produced one of the best European final displays in history, scoring an hattrick to help Atalanta lift their first European trophy. He became the first player to score three goals in a European final.
International call-up
Lookman made his international debut for Nigeria in a scoreless draw against Ghana in 2022, after initially representing England at youth level. He has 21 caps to his name, scoring six goals withing this period.
Lookman in an interview with NFF Tv said that the best best moment of his football career was when he got his first international call-up from Nigeria.
“The most memorable moment of my career was getting called up to the Super Eagles. It’s a big highlight,” he said, according to Soccernet.
The Low
Failed paneka against Westham
After a botched effort at a Panenka penalty, Lookman had his head in his hands and his name in the papers for all the wrong reasons.
In November 2020, he had been handed a fantastic opportunity to make it 1-1 in Fulham’s match against West Ham. aBut Lukasz Fabianski read his chipped penalty, comfortably stopping his effort, condemning Fulham to a 1-0 los
”When that incident happened I couldn’t even describe the devastation,’ Lookman admitted, in an interview with the Guardian.
”I can only try to atone for that error. That was a key thing which people told me after that moment happened – it is about how I come back and use it to turn it into something positive,” he added.
