A few days before the great final of the Champions League between Manchester City and Inter Milan, its smaller sister closed its edition, this Wednesday evening, with a final of the Europa League Tantalizing Conference between the English club of West Ham and the Italian club of Fiorentina, on the lawn of the stadium of the Eden Arena, in Prague, Czech Republic. A final that smelled of powder with a lot of tension around the enclosure with three injured in a fight between supporters, a few hours before kick-off.
To discover
- Europa League schedule and results
- Schedule and results Europa League Conference
On the Hammers side, coach David Moyes has decided to start two French players with former Parisian Alphonse Areola in the cages and defender Kurt Zouma in the axial hinge. On the Viola side, tactician Vincenzo Italiano has done without French winger Jonathan Ikoné, in favor of Christian Kouamé on the side.
In the first half, both teams put a lot of intensity and aggressiveness into their exchanges, although the match struggled to settle. Fiorentina seemed slightly above with 70% of possession, eight shots attempted and a goal disallowed on the wire of Luka Jovic for a slight offside (90th + 4). West Ham played quickly against and framed the only shot of the half in the first minute of play, by Michail Antonio. But the attacking performance of the English was far from flamboyant, in real lack of consistency - unlike the Viola who relied on his wings to overflow with Nicolás González and Christian Kouamé.
In the second act, as the pace began to drop, West Ham came to sound their opponent by provoking and converting a penalty in the wake of Saïd Benrahma, after a hand of Cristiano Biraghi (62nd). But La Viola was quick to react thanks to Giacomo Bonaventura who took over Nicolas Gonzalez's serve from the head (67th). After an exchange of chances in the last half hour, Jarrod Bowen scored the winning goal in the final moments, served deep by Lucas Paqueta (90th).
With this result, West Ham won their first European competition since the final won (2-0) against TSV 1860 Munich with a double from Alan Sealey, in the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1965. Like their compatriots AS Roma in the Europa League, the Fiorentina players finish the competition as sad losing finalists.
