Atalanta vs Bayer Leverkusen Preview

The 2023/24 UEFA Europa League season will come to a climax this Wednesday when Atalanta face Bayer Leverkusen at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland.

Atalanta are playing in the final of this competition for the first time in their history having beaten French Ligue 1 side Marseille 4-1 on aggregate in the last round. Marseille aren’t the only big team Gian Piero Gasparini’s side has faced in the knockout rounds this season. The Bergamo-based club beat Sporting and Liverpool before the last round. So, despite this being their first UEL final, they have proven that they are not pushovers and will fancy their chances of becoming the first Italian side to lift the UEL trophy.

La Dea are currently on a 12-game run in the UEL that features just one defeat (W7, D4), while scoring in all but two of their last 25 continental games and that proves how dangerous they are. They also won the only previous two ties against Leverkusen which came in this competition’s Round of 16 in 2021/22, and the fact they’re not favourites in this final with all those accolades proves how unbelievable their German counterparts have been.

Xabi Alonso’s side will be looking to continue their unbelievable season and win their second trophy of the season after wrapping up the Bundesliga title with a 2-1 win over Augsburg last Saturday. In doing so, they became the first German side to go the entire Bundesliga season unbeaten. That win also made it 51 games unbeaten this season for Leverkusen (W42, D9).

Making that 52 games would see them clinch European honours for only the second time after lifting the 1988 UEFA Cup, and a 53rd game without defeat would truly launch Alonso into stratospheric stardom as a manager ahead of their final game of the season this coming weekend when they take on Kaiserslautern for the DFB-Pokal.