Rice ready for last hurrah – and chance to join West Ham icons
Captain is all but certain to leave this summer but not before a European final to cement status as club legend
There have been many great players in the long existence of West Ham United but only two of them have ever lifted a trophy as captain. They were Bobby Moore and Billy Bonds, two genuine legends of east London, and the challenge for Declan Rice tonight is to find a way of joining those icons in the history books.
It is an opportunity that many of Rice’s predecessors never had. It is also an opportunity – a shot at immortality – that Rice will not have again.
This Europa Conference League final represents the first showpiece event of his time as West Ham captain, and also the last. It is no secret that Rice will leave the club this summer and there can be no better way of doing so than with a winner’s medal hanging around his neck.
More than four decades have passed since West Ham won a major trophy and Rice, as the academy graduate who became the first-team leader, understands the significance of the occasion. “The biggest match that the club has had in so long,” he said in advance of the trip to Prague. “It is a unique opportunity.”
There are no guarantees of fairytale endings in football, and certainly not in European finals against teams of Fiorentina’s quality. But if any player deserves a joyful send-off, it is surely Rice. The 24-yearold has always given his all for his club, even in the darker days of this season when it would have been easy to think about life elsewhere, and it is a measure of his reputation at West Ham that there is no sense of anger at his imminent departure.
On and off the pitch this season, Rice has been West Ham’s reference point and source of stability. Would Premier League survival have been possible without his determination and drive in the final months of the campaign?
Probably not. The same is true of the club’s run to this Europa Conference League final. Rice has been the engine that has kept the wheels turning for David Moyes and his players.
Tonight’s final in Prague will be Rice’s 57th match of the season, for club and country. He has not stopped running and has not stopped fighting. The sheer physicality of it all is impressive enough, before one considers the technical quality he has provided in midfield.
His quarter-final strike against Gent, when he surged from his own half before smashing the ball into the corner with his left foot, was the ultimate demonstration of the player he has become since joining West Ham’s academy, after being released by Chelsea, at the age of 14. “That is probably one of the best goals I have ever scored,” he said.
Arsenal have seen enough, and are ready to pounce as soon as this campaign concludes. Bayern Munich are also interested, which is an indication of Rice’s standing on the Continent. If West Ham have their way, they could generate a fee close to £100million.
Does anyone else in their squad come close to matching Rice’s
‘To win a trophy like this, with West Ham… it puts every player at a higher status in the club’
transfer value or on-pitch importance? In truth, no.
“Hopefully, we can create history,” Rice said. “We have already created history by getting to the final, but now there is a chance to go and create a legacy where every single player, the manager and everyone involved will be remembered forever.
“It would be my biggest achievement in football so far, 100 per cent. I think it would be for a lot of us. To win a trophy like this, a European trophy, with West Ham… it puts every player at a higher status within the club in terms of the fans and how you will be remem
It is rare in the modern game for one player to be so dominant and so important for his side
bered. It would just mean everything.”
Rice was not chosen to speak at the pre-match press conference in Prague, with the club instead preferring to publish those words from an in-house interview. That is a reflection of the speculation around his future, and last night Moyes carefully batted away all questions about his captain’s likely departure.
West Ham, clearly, do not want this occasion to become all about Rice. The player, himself, would not want that either. This is a team game, after all, and Rice will almost certainly need someone else to score the goals against Fiorentina, while he patrols the midfield and lunges into tackles further back.
It is rare in the modern game, though, for one player to be so dominant and so important for his side. To picture West Ham without Rice is to picture a different team entirely and, in some ways, a different club, too.
That is the future that awaits them. But first, a final. A chance of glory, an opportunity to write a new chapter in the club’s history and, for Rice, a day to define his legacy at the club where he made his name.