West Ham win Conference League final against Fiorentina to end decades of trophy hurt
Fiorentina 1-2 West Ham (Bonaventura 67′ | Benrahma pen 62′, Bowen 90′)
EDEN ARENA — The wait is over. West Ham had gone 43 years without winning any trophy and 58 since lifting a major European cup, before Jarrod Bowen raced through to slide a 90th-minute finish into the bottom corner to settle the Europa Conference League final against Fiorentina and end decades of longing and yearning.
The party in Prague will go on for days and carry on for months in east London. This was the most significant night this club has had in years. Declan Rice on probably his final appearance for the club, became only the third captain to lead them to a major cup, following on from two of the all-time greats, Bobby Moore and Billy Bonds.
David Moyes has won something at last, in his 1,097th game as a manager. They were calling for his head in April; they’ll be calling for a statue outside the London Stadium in June. There were reports that the Scot’s future could hinge on Wednesday’s result. It’s safe to say he’ll be sticking around for the foreseeable after this.
It had looked as though West Ham had popped their own bubbles. Said Benrahma put them in front just past the hour mark with a confidently taken penalty awarded after a VAR check, but parity was quickly restored when Giacomo Bonaventura steered Fiorentina level. But then Bowen struck, in an instant securing his place in West Ham folklore. Perhaps more than anyone else, he epitomises West Ham’s journey under Moyes.
As many as 20,000 West Ham fans descended on the Czech Republic’s capital city, travelling via train, plane and automobile and journeying across multiple European countries to reach their end destination. It was well worth the trip and well worth the cost.
Most of them congregated in Uefa’s designated fan zone at the leafy Letna Park in the hours before game. There was a distinct Fyre Festival feel to it all, as fans hopped athletically away from the various puddles that had pooled on the sandy surface overnight.
But everyone seemed to enjoy themselves anyway, mustering polite applause when Chesney Hawkes, the headliner of Hammerfest, morphed into Vanilla Ice and performed “Rice, Rice baby”.
Others were pocketed in and around Old Town Square, which is where some fans and a policeman were targeted by thugs donned in black clothes and armed with the hooligans’ toolkit of chains, flares and chairs. Czech police said that “Italy fans attacked West Ham fans in a bar” and confirmed that 16 people had been detained for their part in the disorder.
Sadly, West Ham fans picked up their moral high ground and launched it into the Vltava River when some – and it was a fair few – hurled plastic cups at Fiorentina captain Cristiano Biraghi with one projectile drawing blood from the back of his head.
Their own players pleaded for calm and common sense as the Italian was bandaged up and a message urging for respect to be shown was read out over the PA system.
“Attention please, this is an important security announcement,” the announcer said. “Please stop throwing objects on to the pitch immediately. Please respect the players and officials. Thank you!”
West Ham said in a statement: “These actions have no place in football, and do not in any way represent the values of our football club and the overwhelming majority of our supporters, who have behaved impeccably in Prague this week and throughout our last two seasons in European competition.”
That was the defining moment of a first-half that was predictably cagey. Fiorentina’s European drought had gone on even longer than West Ham’s; their sole continental success came in the 1961 Cup Winners’ Cup, four years before Moore led the Hammers to victory in the same competition.
They had the ball in the net in first-half stoppage time, when one-time golden boy of European football and Real Madrid’s original Karim Benzema successor Luka Jovic bundled in from close range after Alphonse Areola had palmed Christian Kouame’s header into his path.
It was offside and to exacerbate Jovic’s misery he suffered a blow to his face while challenging for the ball – fortunately not from an errant cup from the stands – and was replaced at half-time by the competition’s joint-top scorer Arthur Cabral, who had been surprisingly left out.
Biraghi was involved in the thick of things again after the break after being involved in a vehement West Ham penalty appeal. The defender unsuspectingly nudged the ball away from Bowen with his knuckles as the winger charged into the box and after a VAR check and the previously unpopular Carlos del Cerro Grande awarded West Ham the spot-kick.
It was harsh on Biraghi, who had already suffered enough, but West Ham sympathy was in short supply. Benrahma has often looked more comfortable and composed in slower-paced European games and confidently sent Pietro Terracciano the wrong way from the penalty spot to spark chaotic scenes of unbridled joy in the stands.
Such wide-eyed wonderment did not last long. While the West Ham fans were still basking in Benrahma’s glory, Bonaventura struck the equaliser, artfully manipulating the ball into the bottom corner after being teed up by Nicolas Gonzalez’s careful header. Fiorentina had got it launched, and it worked.
The sound was sucked out of the West Ham end and instantly teleported to the opposite side of the stadium. It bounced back before long, Bowen’s goal lapped up by those who could scarcely believe what they were watching.
“Champions of Europe, we know what we are,” they sang. West Ham are not used to being winners. They are now.
