COLLYWOBBLES
West Ham 2 AZ Alkmaar 1
So here we are again, one year on. The first leg of a European semi-final that fate has determined we would play on our own turf. The advantage of a home tie simultaneously hampered by the knowledge that you will need to take something with you to get you through a hostile ninety away minutes. Their crowd, your tactics, to defend or to attack, playing extra time in an away stadium with a possible penalty shoot-out on foreign turf… All that kind of shit. And tonight’s game hasn’t even started.
We got it horribly wrong last year against the Germans. That is a sentence many clubs and England have often been heard to mutter after the event, usually before a repeat of the previous year’s disaster. Last year, in late April, we faced Eintracht Frankfurt, managed by Oliver Glasner, who had just beaten Barcelona in their own back yard. We were so up for it. But then we managed to concede a goal from the first attack of the game. Forty-nine seconds. We fought back. Bowen hit the post. Antonio scored six minutes later. We were back in it. But we conceded early in the second half and have it all to do again. Frankfurt hit the post with ten minutes to go, but up comes Bowen in injury time with a brilliant overhead to at least ensure we have avoided defeat. Except his brilliant effort hits the underside of the bar with the keeper on holiday, so all we have to take to the second away leg is a one goal deficit. The rest you will remember. Intimately.
But this year we are playing the Dutch. Or a Dutch team, anyway. The pre-match atmosphere is apocalyptic, and DJ Tony Perry is firing out a musicabulous mix of tunes that those of us with a silver pound or three in our wallets remember well from the good old days…
Saïd Benrahma seems to have something extra up his sleeve tonight, and after twelve minutes sees his pinpoint shot from twenty yards finger tipped away by Mat Ryan in the Alkmaar goal. And yet.. and yet… Alkmaar, from Northern Holland, are not about to make this a straightforward slam dunk for West Ham… After getting away with a thumping foul from behind on Paquetá by Sam Beukema, they break upfield, and when the ball is laid back to Reijnders, the Dutch international thumps it hopefully towards the corner of Areola’s goal, and an awkward late bounce takes it past him into the corner of the net. The Dutch side are ahead, just five minutes before half time!
After dominating the first half, David Moyes has a tough motivating half-time talk ahead of him if this isn’t to be a second successive season of semi-final exit from a major European competition. Hammers come out all buns glazing, and the shine of their pastries raises the bar as Bowen shoots just wide on the hour, with Ryan well beaten. Five minutes later and Paquetá hits in a sweet cross that Souček heads goalwards, and as Bowen leans back to put the final touch, he is rudely gloved in the face by Ryan – penalty! Perhaps that was the only way West Ham were going to score, Benrahma calmly places the ball on the spot, and though Ryan guesses correctly to his right, the shot is just too powerful and too perfectly placed to even get a hand to.
Ten minutes later, and West Ham turn the game around completely, with a bizarre team goal. Bowen’s corner is headed across the goal by Zouma from where Ricce picks it up and keeps it in, crossing it back into the danger area, reaching the head of Aguerd, and although his firm effort is spectacularly cleared off the line by Yukinari Sugawara, Antonio follows up and forces it home. For the first time in the tie, West Ham are ahead. They almost have a third a few minutes later when Benrahma, easily the man of the match tonight, plays a delicious one two with substitute Danny Ings’ back heel before just getting a little too much underneath the ball, and his effort clears the bar.
So it’s a narrow lead to take to Holland next Thursday, but an improvement on last season’s semi-final. West Ham left it late to the last quarter of an hour, but proved as they have done all season, that the form book goes out of the window when the European matches arrive. Those old enough to remember, may recall the 1975-76 season, where West Ham were enjoying a good season until after Christmas when they barely won a game in the league and almost got relegated, but reached the final of the European Cup Winners Cup, which they lost to Anderlecht 4-2 in Belgium.
West Ham’s opponents, if they can overcome AZ Alkmaar next week in the second leg, will be Fiorentina of Italy or Basel of Switzerland. It may well be a trip to chocolates and cuckoo clock land, as Basel have won the first leg in Italy 2-1. AZ Alkmaar have already spared West Ham a repeat semi-final against Anderlecht forty-seven years on by beating them 4-1 on penalties in the quarter-final at their AFAS Stadion a few weeks ago. Let’s hope the Hammers don’t face a similar fate there in a week’s time.
13 Alphonse Areola, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 4 Kurt Zouma, 27 Nayef Aguerd, 23 Thilo Kehrer, 41 Declan Rice (captain), 11 Lucas Paquetá, 28 Tomas Souček, 22 Saïd Benrahma, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 9 Michail Antonio
Substitutes: 18 Danny Ings, 8 Pablo Fornals
Goalscorers: Saïd Benrahma (penalty), Michail Antonio
