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Only Inter in the Champions League, and against Manchester City, can give a continental title this campaign to Italian football, which opted for a historic treble in European competitions and has already seen the first two options pass by. Roma was left without Europa League against Sevilla and on Wednesday Fiorentina could not succeed Jose Mourinho's team in the palmares of the new Conference League because it fell to West Ham United, which adds its second European title after the Cup Winners' Cup it won in 1965. It is mourned by Fiorentina, who had also just lost another final, this one of the Italian Cup, against Inter.
FIOFiorentina
1
Terracciano, Luca Ranieri (Igor Julio, min. 84), Dodo, Nikola Milenkovic, Biraghi, Bonaventura, Sofyan Amrabat, Rolando Mandragora (Antonin Barak, min. 92), Nicolás González, Cristian Kouame (Riccardo Saponara, min. 61) and Jovic (Arthur Cabral, min. 45)
WHA West Ham
2
Areola, Naif Aguerd, Zouma (Thilo Kehrer, min. 61), Emerson, Coufal, Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek, Lucas Paquetá, Benrahma (Fornals, min. 76), Jarrod Bowen and Michail Antonio (Ogbonna, min. 93)
Goals 0-1 min. 62: Benrahma. 1-1 min. 67: Bonaventura. 1-2 min. 90: Jarrod Bowen.
Arbitrator Carlos del Cerro Grande
Yellow cards Benrahma (min. 30), Naif Aguerd (min. 53), Rolando Mandragora (min. 66), Duncan (min. 67), Nikola Milenkovic (min. 74), Sofyan Amrabat (min. 85) and Jarrod Bowen (min. 97)
After 43 years without celebrating a title (an English Cup in 1980), with the only baggage of a European title that Bobby Moore lifted a year before lifting the Jules Rimet Cup at Wembley, manager David Moyes decided that West Ham United's plan in a final should be to fold in their field. Join two lines of four men in front of the goalkeeper and wait for the failure of the opponent to go against or scratch some episodic action to set pieces. After spending this summer 194 million euros in signings and entering just 21, in the culmination of a career in which he barely won an English Super Cup to Wigan as soon as he inherited the position of Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Moyes flattened his team to turn the game into a swim. He was helped by Fiorentina, who took the ball between the complacency of their rival and the scarcity of resources to manage it.
Everything happened between tensions and rigidities. The Italian team tried to move the opponent, but he did so in panic, altered by the possibility that when he lost the ball he would offer spaces that would make him vulnerable. He barely tested Areola and even suffered some anxiety for example in a kick that West Ham placed in the penalty spot and that after the corresponding melée ended in Rice's shot near the post.
Little else happened until at match time a first goal opened the game. Or at least it altered moods and even intentions. Until then the night in Prague was as rough as it was the day, in which incidents were reported between both hobbies with a score of detainees. Some West Ham fans decided that his stamp should also remain in the stadium. There they hydrated with a kind of plastic jugs that once emptied became projectiles to throw them into the field. One of them hit Biraghi's head and made a gap, an unfortunate break in a game that did not take rhythm, but in which Fiorentina could score in the last action before half half. Nico González took a monumental center and Kouamé headed to the post, the rejection was pushed by Jovic into the net, but the exmadridista striker was offside.
After the break West Ham was encouraged to wait for their rival a few steps higher. Given that Fiorentina were not able to progress, it did not seem a bad idea to try to recover the ball a little closer to their goal. Not that Moyes jumped into the pool without a float, but something seemed to change because the game stopped being an insipid monologue of the Italian team. And along the way he found himself in advantage on the scoreboard thanks to an accidental penalty, a hand of Biraghi in which the VAR helped Carlos Del Cerro, who retired from the arbitration and, always excellent in the conduct of the matches, had not seen the infringement in real time. Benrahma scored from eleven meters and risked an expulsion because after the goal he climbed into the stands when he already had a warning.
Fiorentina took five minutes to equalize, great news for the team given the fur of the opponent in front of them. He did not have time to get more locks to West Ham before Nico González won an aerial ball and the veteran Bonaventura crossed a shot into the net. Everything stirred, but the irons saw to it that things fell back into place. He covered himself again and hoped that the fatigue of both would show a loophole through which to sneak towards victory. Lucas Paquetá found it about to be fulfilled in the ninety minute. He stepped on a ball that was loose in the marrow and took shine to the left to place it behind the back viola and leave Bowen in front of the goalkeeper. The goal rewarded a racano plan, but nobody remembers the details on these occasions. David Moyes, who came close to losing his job several times this season, celebrated as if there was no tomorrow. And maybe, if it is about winning, there will not be.
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