Leverkusen had not tasted defeat for almost a year, but were beaten to the Europa League trophy in Dublin as Ademola Lookman bagged a hat-trick for Atalanta.
Bayer Leverkusen’s historic unbeaten run came to an end in today’s Europa League final, as Atalanta swept Xabi Alonso’s men aside to lift their first ever continental trophy. Atalanta dominated Leverkusen at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium, where Ademola Lookman scored a hat-trick to give the Italians a 3-0 victory.
How many games did Leverkusen go without defeat?
Defeat for Leverkusen curbed the Germans’ 51-game unbeaten, which had stretched back almost exactly a year. Die Werkself had not lost a competitive match since going down to a 3-0 defeat to VfL Bochum on the final day of the 2022/23 Bundesliga campaign, on 22 May 2023.
Since then, Leverkusen had avoided defeat in 34 games in the Bundesliga, 12 in the Europa League and five in the DFB-Pokal.
Leverkusen unbeaten run sets records
They became the first team ever to go through an entire Bundesliga season without defeat, and broke Benfica’s six-decade-old European-record unbeaten run. Until this season, no club in Europe had enjoyed a longer undefeated sequence since the Benfica side that went 48 games unbeaten in all competitions between December 1963 and February 1965.
Defeat to Atalanta also ended Leverkusen’s hopes of a domestic and European treble this season. Having secured the club’s first ever German title in April, Alonso’s men were now out to add the Europa League and the DFB-Pokal to their 2023/24 trophy haul. Leverkusen face Kaiserslautern in the final of the DFB-Pokal on Saturday 25 May.