A WALK IN THE GATEAU
West Ham 2 FC Freiburg 0
The picture is clear. Win or draw and you are in the last 16, with the second leg of your tie at home. At least that’s how it is for West Ham. Freiburg must win if they are to achieve this. Still, they have a couple of thousand enthusiastic ultras, all dressed in their white uniforms with a red trim. But no flares have been set off by the time the game starts.
For all the fear from all the years of reversals and footballing disappointments, it soon becomes clear that Hammers are in the driving seat for this task, Paquetá thumping the ball almost nonchalantly against the bar in an early attack, as Hammers tighten the screw on their opponents.
The lead is secured just inside the first fifteen minutes when Alvarez plays an audacious through ball beyond the Freiburg defence to Kudus, who even has time to break his stride to assume a comfortable shooting position before despatching the ball into the corner of the net.
Álvarez is involved again for the second goal on the half hour, switching an effortless one two with Kudus before neatly slotting the ball past the keeper. This is now beginning to resemble what more than one journalist has termed a ‘routine European victory’ for the Hammers, and the crowd settle back into their routine chants of ‘Champions of Europe, We Know Who We Are.’ Thankfully there are no Fulham fans around to qualify it with, ‘You Still Play Like Shit.’
The second half is memorable only for the Freiburg fans relentless singing and celebrating their team’s achievement of second position, which also puts them into the knockout stages of the Europa League, albeit into the round of thirty-two with the dropouts from the Champions League.
1 Lucasz Fabianski (captain), 33 Emerson, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 15 Konstantinos Mavropanos, 27 Nayef Aguerd, 19 Edson Alvarez, 7 James Ward-Prowse, 11 Lucas Paquetá, 14 Mohammed Kudus, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 28 Tomas Souček
Substitutes: 8 Pablo Fornals, 14 Maxwel Cornet, 45 Divin Mubama, 18 Danny Ings, 27 Thilo Kehrer
Goalscorers: Mohammed Kudus, Edson Álvarez
