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06 Sept 2025
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06 Sept 2025
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Ballina kids met John O'Shea before the match inside the belly of the stadium. Pic: Duffy
Eleven Mayo kids from Culleens National School Ballina led the way last night as mascots for the Europa League Final in Dublin. The pupils were paired up with players of the Atalanta Bergamo side from Italy and walked with them onto the pitch in the Aviva Stadium.
The Ballina kids were selected by the The UEFA Foundation and Rio Ferdinand Foundation in recognition of the school's collaboration in previous programmes.
And the Mayo students turned out to be good luck for the Italians as they went on to beat heavy favourites, to-date unbeaten Bayer Leverkusen 3-0. One Culleens pupil in particular:
"One of our eleven mascots, Luke McDonald, held the hand of Ademola Lookman, the guy who scored the three goals (for Bergamo) last night and was man of the match. And Luke knew his name because, he did his research before. And I was kind of prepping the kids beforehand in the dressing room," teacher Mick Duffy told The Mayo News afterwards.
The kids with their self-drawn crests of the two participating teams: Bayer Leverkusen and Atalanta Bergamo
And the principal of Cullin's National School had taken those mascots in the last week doing projects on the players and stuff like that. So they were well tuned in, but the excitement was beyond belief for the kids, when John O'Shea came in and then of course walking out in the tunnel, it's just surreal for the kids.
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"It was magic from the minute one for those kids, they were really like celebrities, being in the belly of the stadium, everybody, when they were walking through the the tunnel, where all the UEFA staff were, clapping and waving at them," Duffy explained.
"Every one was predicting Leverkusen because they had been unbeaten 51 games. But it was always going to happen at one stage. The kids loved the confetti afterwards and the celebration. In general, some of the kids would have been to a stadium that size but the atmosphere was special. The drums, fans chanting to a guy on a megaphone, it was unbelievable."
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