Europa Conference League FINAL - Fiorentina vs West Ham - Wednesday 7th June, 2023

[Rick]

Fair play to Moyes & co. 

[Michael]

3 ex-Slavia Prague players on the pitch now, Barak for Fiorentina and Coufal and Soucek for West Ham. All used to play in this stadium regularly during their Slavia Prague days.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

Full Time - West Ham win the Europa Conference League 2-1.

Fair play to them.

[Michael]

Congratulations to West Ham! They just avoided relegation this season in the Prem and now they win a European trophy!  Well done West Ham and Moyes!

[Rick]

Declan Rice is a good lad, celebrating with that kid is brilliant. 

[6666]

Shame Fiorentina didn't make more use of the ball. Amrabat, Biraghi, and Bonaventura are a tidy midfield trio but not enough creativity there. Saponara was just shit when he came on.

Fair play to West Ham. Not sure how much you can say about winning the third tier European competition but it's still a big moment in their history and they'll understandably enjoy it.

[Whiskey]

West Ham will hopefully have the trophy taken off them for that appalling fan behaviour. 

Fiorentina hard done by, disappointing.

[RandoEFC+]

Good for them and for all the post-Everton complaints I can direct at him, good for Moyes too. I don't have any particular like for West Ham or their fans but they'll have the party of their life tonight and if anyone wants to chat shit about a tinpot competition or, my personal favourite, "yOu'D tHiNk DeYv WuN tHe ChAmPuNs LeEg Or SuMiNg", then enjoy yelling at clouds because those fans won't give two shits what anyone else has to say.

Regardless of what level it's at or what competition it is, football is about enjoying your own team's achievements with your mates.

[Lucas]

When you've not won a trophy for 43 years and your chances of winning one each season pretty much only comes down to the League Cup at best for most teams these days, this will feel like the Champions League final for West Ham.

I'm quite chuffed for them tbh, mainly because it's nice to see someone different win something.

Plus, when push comes to shove, there is still something patriotic about seeing an English team beat a foreign side in a European Final.

I bet if you asked Aston Villa tonight, they'd love to get to the final of this next year.

[CaaC (John)+]

16 hours ago, CaaC (John) said:

My old man was a Hammers supporter so I would love West Ham to win this just for him, he is more than likely up there looking down with a roll up drum cigarette in his mouth, dressed in his West Ham kit and blowing bubbles while supping a beer.

Hammers 3-1 

My old man blowing bubbles now and pissed as a newt with Hammer Angels  

Celtic are going for Moyes, I bet as their next manager  

[Fairy In Boots]

7 hours ago, Lucas said:

When you've not won a trophy for 43 years and your chances of winning one each season pretty much only comes down to the League Cup at best for most teams these days, this will feel like the Champions League final for West Ham.

I'm quite chuffed for them tbh, mainly because it's nice to see someone different win something.

Plus, when push comes to shove, there is still something patriotic about seeing an English team beat a foreign side in a European Final.

I bet if you asked Aston Villa tonight, they'd love to get to the final of this next year.

I can confirm I know a bloke that’s already booked tickets to Athens to save money, if we don’t make it he’s having a holiday with his son. 
 

Also fair play to Moyes and West Ham the games about trophies at the end of the day, that’s 7 for the hammers now. 

[Honey Honey]

[Stan]

 

 

[Reluctant Striker]

Did not see the whole thing live, but the missile incident from West Ham fans to the Fiorentina player seemed a bit horrific.

But, yes, I do think it is nice to see sides lift trophies that have not done so for a while.

Will be interesting to see if Unai Emery brings Villa into the modern era of playing 1st choice teams in Europe. 

[Azeem]

Make this competition only for clubs that have no sugar daddy owner then it will be more interesting. 

[Honey Honey]

20 hours ago, Stan said:

 

 

I think this is the wrong take, perhaps the take of someone who was too young to remember the early millennium or the result of the likes or Arsenal and Man Utd pretending to be underdogs. English football wasn't open before Man City and it wouldn't be open if they weren't around. 

 

[RandoEFC+]

1 hour ago, Honey Honey said:

I think this is the wrong take, perhaps the take of someone who was too young to remember the early millennium or the result of the likes or Arsenal and Man Utd pretending to be underdogs. English football wasn't open before Man City and it wouldn't be open if they weren't around. 

 

Football is even more closed now though. Domestically, FFP stops teams "doing a Blackburn/Chelsea/Man City" even if they get a huge financial windfall. You won't see Marseille/Ajax/Dortmund/Porto winning the Champions League nowadays either.

I have very little sympathy for Arsenal and Man Utd fans claiming they "deserve" to be eternally dominant just because they were in a position to exploit the 'new football' that emerged in the early 90s by being in the right place at the right time but at least they got into that position on merit at the time. Man City's success is more or less a case of being lucky enough to be purchased by the richest fuckers in the world who could actually set up a competent footballing operation and who managed to get in there just before FFP pulled up the drawbridge.

It does feel with the Europa League and the Conference League that at least the clubs who succeed had to earn their way there within a tier of 50+ or so clubs with similar opportunities to them. The 6-8 teams that can realistically expect to win the Champions League have everyone else beaten on the start line every season which is totally tedious.

[Danny]

The monopolisation of football by Man Utd, attempted by Arsenal and what Liverpool tried to latch onto, are not separate entities compared to oil money clubs, but are directly related and in fact it was the early monopolisation of the Premier League that created opportunities for rich individuals to come in and benefit from the highly capitalist actions of United and co.

[Honey Honey]

 

25 minutes ago, Danny said:

The monopolisation of football by Man Utd, attempted by Arsenal and what Liverpool tried to latch onto, are not separate entities compared to oil money clubs, but are directly related and in fact it was the early monopolisation of the Premier League that created opportunities for rich individuals to come in and benefit from the highly capitalist actions of United and co.

I don't think this is necessarily true of oil owners. Of American owners using loans yes. Since value must increase for the risk to be worth it.

The primary motive of Putin and Mansour  isn't value. It is to open doors previously closed. I'd argue Abramovich did not expect Chelsea to ever be worth a billion.

Many in the 00's and early 10s kept saying this is financially going to collapse, blow up, right itself. All reminiscent of what people said about property prices in the 90s and 00s.

[Danny]

11 minutes ago, Honey Honey said:

 

I don't think this is necessarily true of oil owners. Of American owners using loans yes. Since value must increase for the risk to be worth it.

The primary motive of Putin and Mansour  isn't value. It is to open doors previously closed. I'd argue Abramovich did not expect Chelsea to ever be worth a billion.

Many in the 00's and early 10s kept saying this is financially going to collapse, blow up, right itself. All reminiscent of what people said about property prices in the 90s and 00s.

I mean they wouldn’t be investing this heavily if clubs like United in England specifically hadn’t done so much of the groundwork of creating support bases across the globe in line with new Premier League tv deals. Success in the Premier League helps support sports washing, but also for Oil rich nations like the UAE they need to find ways to create income away from oil as it won’t always be there. Having a world class side like City sponsor your national airline, encouraging traffic from the west to places like Abu Dhabi, with all the investment there. Owning City helps legitimise countries and cities like this as new business, leisure and travel hubs.

All of that is done off of the back of what was created in the early 2000s with the monopoly the Premier League created, especially thinking back to the dominance of the top 4 and international respect that brought those clubs

[Dr. Gonzo]

3 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

You won't see Marseille/Ajax/Dortmund/Porto winning the Champions League nowadays either.

Tbf didn't we only see Marseille win the CL one time... in a season where they ended up having their league title stripped for match fixing & they've never really been in serious contention for the CL since...

[Honey Honey]

1 hour ago, Danny said:

I mean they wouldn’t be investing this heavily if clubs like United in England specifically hadn’t done so much of the groundwork of creating support bases across the globe in line with new Premier League tv deals. Success in the Premier League helps support sports washing, but also for Oil rich nations like the UAE they need to find ways to create income away from oil as it won’t always be there. Having a world class side like City sponsor your national airline, encouraging traffic from the west to places like Abu Dhabi, with all the investment there. Owning City helps legitimise countries and cities like this as new business, leisure and travel hubs.

All of that is done off of the back of what was created in the early 2000s with the monopoly the Premier League created, especially thinking back to the dominance of the top 4 and international respect that brought those clubs

That's fair. 

The Champions League revenue played a huge part in the 00's and 10's. It ramped up the speed of disparity and has left a negative mark on many leagues across the continent. 

In the last decade clubs have grown commercial revenues so disparate that they can afford to miss out on the Champions league where they probably couldn't before.

The new FFP Champions League rules also mean getting in for one year has little to no effect on closing the gap since prize money is now paid out based on your last 5 years performance and not the season in question. If Newcastle and Man City get knocked out at the same stage next season Man City will still get tens of millions more in prize funds than Newcastle. How this has been allowed to happen is beyond me. I understand those who think it's Newcastle oil money so who cares, fine in this case, but overall, what if it was someone else who broke in 1 year. It could have been West Ham just the other year. They'd have been royally mugged off financially. 

[Danny]

22 minutes ago, Honey Honey said:

That's fair. 

The Champions League revenue played a huge part in the 00's and 10's. It ramped up the speed of disparity and has left a negative mark on many leagues across the continent. 

In the last decade clubs have grown commercial revenues so disparate that they can afford to miss out on the Champions league where they probably couldn't before.

The new FFP Champions League rules also mean getting in for one year has little to no effect on closing the gap since prize money is now paid out based on your last 5 years performance and not the season in question. If Newcastle and Man City get knocked out at the same stage next season Man City will still get tens of millions more in prize funds than Newcastle. How this has been allowed to happen is beyond me. I understand those who think it's Newcastle oil money so who cares, fine in this case, but overall, what if it was someone else who broke in 1 year. It could have been West Ham just the other year. They'd have been royally mugged off financially. 

Yeah Champions League definitely has impacted it, we all remember how shit the top 4 was and how that money helped strengthen it.

I didn’t know that about the new deal, any decent links on it? There hasnt been a Champions League finalist who wasn’t invited into the Super League since Porto and Monaco played each other.

[Bravado]

Before jumping into the thread, in all seriousness, I just can't quite fathom how I felt about this final. Easily one of the best in a long time – the Champions League one was nowhere near it. This was real, genuine football with two proper teams and amazing sets of fans. I'm in love with this competition already, regardless of prestige.

[Bravado]

On 08/06/2023 at 00:33, Lucas said:

When you've not won a trophy for 43 years and your chances of winning one each season pretty much only comes down to the League Cup at best for most teams these days, this will feel like the Champions League final for West Ham.

Not even that tbh.

 

On 08/06/2023 at 15:17, Stan said:

 

 

I mean, this.

 

On 09/06/2023 at 12:04, Honey Honey said:

I think this is the wrong take, perhaps the take of someone who was too young to remember the early millennium or the result of the likes or Arsenal and Man Utd pretending to be underdogs. English football wasn't open before Man City and it wouldn't be open if they weren't around. 

 

Granted, I'd agree English football has been a bit of closed shop for quite a while now (though I think City on the field are a lot more dominant than Utd or even Arsenal were back in the day, teams like Liverpool need to be absolutely inch-perfect to beat them). But what about European footie as a whole? Will we ever see the likes of Porto, Ajax, Benfica challenging for a major European title again? Valencia, Deportivo, etc... Don't Bayern and PSG fans get bored of watching their own leagues? The Conference League brings more traditional sides to the table (with large fanbases like Roma, West Ham, OM, Feyenoord and so on).

On 09/06/2023 at 21:36, Honey Honey said:

That's fair. 

The Champions League revenue played a huge part in the 00's and 10's. It ramped up the speed of disparity and has left a negative mark on many leagues across the continent. 

In the last decade clubs have grown commercial revenues so disparate that they can afford to miss out on the Champions league where they probably couldn't before.

Yeah, I don't think it'd be that easy to do a Leeds or Deportivo in this day and age (as long as you're playing in the main leagues, of course... especially the financial powerhouse that is the PL). The rest of the continent still relies heavily on Champions League money though. 

On 09/06/2023 at 22:00, Danny said:

Yeah Champions League definitely has impacted it, we all remember how shit the top 4 was and how that money helped strengthen it.

I didn’t know that about the new deal, any decent links on it? There hasnt been a Champions League finalist who wasn’t invited into the Super League since Porto and Monaco played each other.

As a matter of fact, out of those four clubs who played the semifinals, only Chelsea have been! I don't pretend things were glamorous back then, some clubs did dominate as well, but it's all become so predictable over the past decade (and a half?)... 

On 08/06/2023 at 09:25, Honey Honey said:

 priceless