Atalanta vs Bayer Leverkusen LIVE: Europa League final team news, line-ups and more tonight

Bayer Leverkusen manager Xabi Alonso played in both the 2005 and 2007 Champions League finals for Liverpool.

He is the fourth person to both play in and manage a major European final this century, along with Zinedine Zidane (played in 2002 CL final, managed in 2016, 2017, 2018 CL finals), Antonio Conte (played in 2003 CL final, managed in 2020 EL final) and Giovanni van Bronckhorst (played in 2006 CL final, managed in 2022 EL final).

Dublin’s Aviva Stadium will become the first venue to host more than one Uefa Europa League final, having played host to the 2011 final which was won 1-0 by FC Porto against Sporting Braga thanks to a goal from Radamel Falcao.

Six of Bayer Leverkusen’s 31 Uefa Europa League goals this season have been scored in the 90th minute of matches – it’s the most 90th minute goals a side has scored in a single major European season.

Bayer Leverkusen have had 232 shots in the Uefa Europa League this season, the most by a team in one season since Chelsea in 2018-19 (247).

They’ve had 30+ shots in three different matches this season, something that had only been achieved more than once in a season by one team previously (Marseille in 2015-16, twice).

Atalanta have only faced 2.8 shots on target per game in the Uefa Europa League this season, the lowest ratio of any side in the competition this season; their final opponents Bayer Leverkusen have been averaging 7.2 shots on target per game in 2023-24.

Bayer Leverkusen have completed 6,622 passes in this season’s Uefa Europa League, the most by a side in one campaign since Sevilla in 2019-20 (6,971).

Their passing accuracy of 89.5% is the second best on record (behind Nice in 2017-18, 90%) while their ratio of 94.3% short passes is the highest by a team in a Europa League season.

Atalanta are looking to become the first Italian side to win the Uefa Europa League, with the trophy only ever being won by sides from Spain, Portugal, England or Germany previously.

The last Italian team to win the Uefa Cup was Parma in a 3-0 win over Marseille in 1999.

Atalanta XI: Musso; Djimsiti, Hien, Kolasinac; Zappacosta, Ederson, Koopmeiners, Ruggeri; De Ketelaere. Scamacca, Lookman

Bayer Leverkusen XI: Kovar; Stanisic, Tah, Tapsoba; Frimpong, Xhaka, Palacios, Hincapie; Wirtz, Adli, Grimaldo

“I think it’s down to the consistency and our performance level, the mental level, our level of focus. In terms of our mentality and level of focus, the team has suffered virtually no disasters or a single bad moment during any game, and that has allowed us to have such an exceptional season.

“But everything has to be about performance and the mentality we are building.

“We have been competitive in every game whether we were playing well or poorly. We played well for the majority of the games, but we didn’t give up in the ones where we didn’t play well.

“That says a lot about the commitment of this team when it comes to preparing for every game. We didn’t take any game for granted, we prepared very well and that requires a lot of physical, footballing and mental effort too.”