Charlton Athletic & Leicester City will know all about Serie A star after European final exploits: View | OneFootball

Charlton Athletic have reaped plenty of benefits from their highly successful academy set-up down the years, with Ademola Lookman perhaps the best example of that in the last decade, as he evidenced on Wednesday night in the Europa League final.

Charlton have such close proximity to a hotbed of young talent by being situated in London and the Addicks have seen many great names come through their academy over the years, something that has boosted the reputation of the club.

Even though they are now in League One, Charlton can still be relied upon to spot young talent and give them an opportunity to shine with a pathway into the first-team squad. Well-known names such as Ezri Konsa, Karlan Grant, Jonjo Shelvey, and Joe Gomez are among those to have graduated through their set-up in the last couple of decades.

However, the most promising of all is Atalanta BC's hat-trick hero, who has had quite an interesting footballing journey, spanning non-league football in England, and top-flight football in three separate countries, before potentially the greatest night he will ever have in his career at the age of just 26 saw him bag a stunning hat-trick in a 3-0 win against an unbeaten Bayer Leverkusen side.

Ademola Lookman's early career

Lookman was playing for Waterloo FC - a youth football club based in the London Borough of Lambeth - in the lower leagues of English football in 2013 when he was picked up by Charlton and rose through their academy system rapidly just over a year later.

His goalscoring exploits and top quality performances fast-tracked him through Charlton's U-18 and U-21 teams to make his first-team debut for the Addicks in early November 2015. He scored his first goal for the club in a 3-2 defeat at Brighton just a month later in the Championship and then followed that up with both of their goals in a 2-2 draw with Bolton Wanderers merely ten days later.

Despite Lookman notching five goals in that time, ultimately, the Addicks were relegated, which was always going to make it difficult for them to retain Lookman's services, albeit they were able to keep hold of him for the first six months of the year, where he proved to be far too good for League One level, unsurprisingly dazzling with a string of impressive displays that saw the Premier League inevitably come calling.

The immensely talented teenager then signed a four-and-a-half-year contract with Everton on January 5th 2017 after joining for an undisclosed fee, which was reported as an initial £7.5 million potentially rising to £11 million with add-ons. Things started incredibly for the young winger, scoring on his debut after just a matter of minutes in an incredible 4-0 win over Manchester City.

However, it would not get much better than that for him for the remainder of the season, as he would make just three starts and eight appearances in total. Then, after an indifferent start to the next campaign, Lookman left on loan in the January transfer window of 2018.

The club hoped he would play regular first-team football, and so he moved to Germany and the Bundesliga to play for RB Leipzig until the end of the 2017/18 season. In his first game with Leipzig, Lookman scored the winning goal in the away game against Borussia Mönchengladbach after coming on as a late substitute, making his theme of good starts at new clubs a consistent one.

After returning to Everton, still a young man, Lookman struggled to nail down a starting berth consistently, but the raw talent saw him return to Leipzig a year later on a five-year contract. There, he showcased flashes of brilliance but consistency continued to evade him as it had at Goodison Park, meaning loans back to English football with Fulham and Leicester City followed.

They had mixed degrees of success, with the campaign with the Foxes far more fruitful for Lookman. He contributed to their European journey that year and looked to be back on track in terms of the early career trajectory and potential he had once shown. Leicester would not be his last venture in Europe, nor his most memorable, in spite of a wonderful goal scored as the equaliser in their UEFA Europa Conference League semi-final first-leg against AS Roma.

Ademola Lookman's move to Atalanta

After looking as though the immensely talented player with a promising career ahead of him might fizzle out somewhat, he earnt a move off the back of his year with Leicester to join Gian Piero Gasperini's talented Atalanta side on a permanent basis from Leipzig in August 2022. He penned a four-year contract for a reported fee of €15 million.

It instantly reinvigorated his career further, with the winger now operating far more frequently as a secondary striker in a two-man attack or a narrow wide forward in a three-man frontline. It got the best out of him, with his directness and speed in the half-space areas making him a devastating player in transition in a high-pressing, counter-attacking, and super intense Atalanta side.

That culminated on Wednesday, when, 11 years after playing non-league football, the 26-year-old scored a hat-trick in the Europa League final, ending Bayer Leverkusen's undefeated record in all competitions and winning Atalanta their first European trophy in their first European final. All three goals were of incredibly high quality.

He always had the talent in terms of his technical ability. Lookman was an impressive and direct dribbler at an early age, with good ball-striking off both feet and from distance, which was very evident with the quality of all three goals on the night, and particularly with the third to seal his hat-trick on his weaker foot.

Lookman became the first ever African player to score a hat-trick in a one-off Europa League match as well, breaking all sorts of records in securing Atalanta's first European crown. Charlton fans knew the potential was there and Leicester supporters saw glimpses of it but he's found his feet and a home under Gasperini in Bergamo. Last night was a real coming of age for the Charlton academy product.