47 Zouma calls for courage

KURT ZOUMA says West Ham will face Bayer Leverkusen’s ‘Invincibles’ “full of belief” that they can inflict the runaway Bundesliga leaders’ first defeat of the season.

The Hammers skipper dreams of lifting the Europa League trophy in Dublin next month and he is convinced David Moyes’ side have the quality to do it.

Leverkusen are unbeaten in 41 games this season and manager Xabi Alonso has turned down approaches from Liverpool and Bayern Munich to stay at the BayArena next season.

But Zouma (inset) insists West Ham will approach tomorrow’s third European quarterfinal in as many seasons with the same conviction which saw off Lyon in 2022 and Gent 12 months ago en route to a major European trophy.

The French international defender said:

“Getting my hands on the trophy and lifting it would be awesome. It’s something you dream of as a child.

“Just winning a trophy was amazing. We did that last year and now we want more, because we just want to win as many games as possible and keep making our fans happy. Being West Ham captain is a huge honour.

Leading

“It’s the first time I’ve taken on a role like that at a big club and leading the team out of the tunnel in big Premier

League and European games is an incredible feeling.

“We know it’s going to be very tough, but that would have been the case against any of the teams we could have drawn at this stage of the competition.

“We know Leverkusen haven’t lost for a long time now, but it’s up to us to be the team to change that.

“We need to beat the best if we want to get through and go all the way. That’s what we’ll be trying to do.

Centre back Zouma continued: “We won the Conference League last year and we got to the Europa League semifinals the season before, so we have a lot of experience and belief.

“We know what we’re capable of and we’ll go to Leverkusen full of belief.”