hammers no ing on europa door
West Ham deliver in their first match in Europe in nine years
LONDON: Football gatecrashed Britain’s summer sporting party scene when West Ham kicked off their season just 39 days after their last competitive match with a satisfactory 3-0 win over Andorran part-timers FC Lusitans in the Europa League.
On the day former men’s singles champion Rafa Nadal crashed out on Centre Court at Wimbledon and six days before the first Ashes cricket Test between England and Australia, the start of the Champions and Europa League qualifiers this week underlined just how European club football is now virtually a yearround affair.
This was just one of 48 matches on Thursday across the continent in the Europa League.
While tennis fans were savouring their strawberries and cream in south west London, some 28 stops to the east on the District Line, West Ham’s punters were tucking into their first burgers and hot dogs of what will be their last-ever season at the Boleyn Ground in Upton Park, their home since 1904.
Next year the Hammers are moving to their new ground, the Olympic Stadium at nearby Stratford.
Although it took West Ham 40 minutes to make the breakthrough before Diafra Sakho nodded them in front, his second goal with the last kick of the first half and a header from James Tomkins after 58 minutes saw them coast home.
Their team were a makeshift mixture of first-teamers and teenagers, with centreback Reece Oxford, who captained England’s Under-17 team when he was only 15, becoming the youngest firstteam player in West Ham’s 120-year history at the age of 16 years and 198 days.
West Ham’s new manager, their former defender Slaven Bilic, was given a rapturous welcome by the 35,000 crowd before the start and he watched from the stands. Academy director Terry Westley took charge.
Lusitans, runners-up in Andorra last season, did not manage an effort on target, but West Ham were never troubled and would have won by a far bigger margin but for Lusitans goalkeeper Gerardo Rubio who made some neat saves. It was the Hammers’ first match in Europe for nine years after they qualified as one of UEFA’s three Fair Play winners which is why their campaign has started so early.
They face the prospect of playing eight games to reach even the group stage which does not start until mid-September with the second leg of this tie in Andorra next Thursday.
The start of the Premier League season is still over a month away too, by which time the visit of Lusitans will probably seem as distant as a hazy holiday beach memory. — Reuters