Atalanta vs Bayer Leverkusen LIVE: Europa League final team news ...

As Xabi Alonso arrived into Dublin, he was of course asked whether it was good to be back. The Bayer Leverkusen manager came to Ireland for a summer when 14 years old to learn English, and it only fosters the sense of a figure coming full circle.

There’s a personal history here, and there could well be a football history through a series of doubles. Alonso may ensure an unbeaten European campaign in Wednesday’s Europa League final, against Atalanta, to go with an unbeaten league campaign. There’s still Saturday’s DFB-Pokal final to come, and that is against second-tier side Kaiserslautern.

The Basque is so close to an unprecedented unbeaten treble, and what would be one of the great football achievements.

At the age of 66 years and 117 days on the day of this game, Atalanta manager Gian Piero Gasperini will be the oldest manager to take charge of his first ever major European final and oldest overall since Jupp Heynckes in the 2013 Champions League final (68 years, 16 days).

His counterpart Xabi Alonso, at 42 years and 179 days, will be the youngest to manage in a European final since Roberto Di Matteo in the 2012 Champions League final (41 years, 356 days), which was against Heynckes.

Atalanta’s Gianluca Scamacca has scored six Europa League goals this season. Only two Italian players have scored more in a single campaign: Giuseppe Rossi in 2010-11 for Villarreal (10) and Ciro Immobile in 2017-18 for Lazio (8).

Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz has been involved in eight goals in the Europa League this season (4 goals, 4 assists), the most of any Bayer player.

He has created 28 chances in open play, a tally only five players can better in a Europa League campaign, most recently Amin Younes for Ajax in 2016-17 (30).

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.