4 min learnKolkataApr 15, 2026 02:07 PM IST
In 2020, Ademola Lookman ran as much as take a penalty for Fulham in opposition to West Ham and chipped it straight into the goalkeeper’s fingers. The audacity of the try — a panenka, softly dinked, making an attempt to learn the keeper — just for it to go precisely the place the keeper stayed. Lukasz Fabianski had already dived, had time to get again to his ft, and caught it comfortably. The ultimate whistle blew seconds later.
Lookman crouched down and coated his face together with his fingers.
Gian Piero Gasperini, who would later handle him at Atalanta, known as him one of many worst penalty takers he had ever seen. Years later, Lookman spoke about that evening in London. “It’s about turning your ache into energy,” he mentioned. “Life might knock you down, and it might not deal you one of the best playing cards.”
On Tuesday evening on the Metropolitano, Lookman didn’t take a penalty. He didn’t want one.
Barcelona arrived needing two targets to overturn Atletico’s first-leg lead. They’d them inside 24 minutes — Lamine Yamal within the 4th, Ferran Torres within the twenty fourth — the Metropolitano briefly silenced, 69,000 folks doing the maths. Two-two on combination. All the pieces Atletico had inbuilt Barcelona the week earlier than, gone.
Then Marcos Llorente discovered area on the suitable. The ball got here to Lookman with Jules Kounde tight to him and Joan Garcia in entrance of him. He hit it anyway.
Atletico had been by.
He’s 28. He’s from Wandsworth, south London, the place he grew up in a home that generally had no meals, and would keep at mates’ properties after soccer simply to eat. He performed for England’s under-19s and under-21s and by no means made the senior squad. He went to Charlton, Everton, Fulham on mortgage, Leicester on mortgage, RB Leipzig, Atalanta — the form of profession the place you by no means fairly keep lengthy sufficient to really feel settled.
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At Atalanta, within the 2024 Europa League remaining in Dublin in opposition to Bayer Leverkusen — the Leverkusen aspect that had gone your complete season unbeaten — Lookman scored a hat-trick. It was the very best level of his profession, and nonetheless not fairly sufficient to make him really feel like he belonged. Inter Milan got here calling that summer season. Atalanta blocked the transfer. He refused to report for pre-season. Then got here a confrontation together with his supervisor Ivan Juric on the touchline, a shove after being substituted. The connection that had produced that evening in Dublin had become one thing neither aspect wished.
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In January 2026, Atalanta bought him to Atletico for 40 million euros. He scored on his debut in opposition to Actual Betis. Within the months that adopted: six targets, 4 assists — a participant who had, quietly, already made himself at dwelling.
“As the sport is occurring,” he mentioned after Tuesday’s match, “moments occur within the recreation.”
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The second that got here was this: a counter-attack, a move from Llorente, a end with a defender proper on him. The form of second that both freezes a participant or doesn’t. For Lookman, within the thirty first minute, in entrance of 69,000 folks with all the pieces degree, it didn’t. Atletico return to the Champions League semifinals for the primary time since 2017. The boy from Wandsworth who as soon as ate at different folks’s tables put them there.
Six years in the past on the Olympic Stadium, after the miss, he coated his face together with his fingers. On Tuesday evening on the Metropolitano, those self same fingers had been within the air.
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