West Ham United striker Michail Antonio has said it was a pleasure to win the Europa Conference League final against Fiorentina as the celebrations at the stadium went into the early hours of the morning. The Hammers won their first major European honour since 1965 on Wednesday night with Jarrod Bowen scoring a 90th minute winner at the Fortuna Arena in Prague, with Said Benrahma’s opener from the penalty spot being cancelled out by Giacomo Bonaventura. For the David Moyes’ side, their first major honour since 1980 means they will be playing in next season’s Europa League, despite finishing 14th in this season’s Premier League.
West Ham’s players and staff partied into the early hours of Thursday morning and are set to continue with an open top bus parade around Stratford on Thursday night.
Speaking about the parade, Jamaican international Antonio, who was the club’s top scorer on 14 goals this season, has said it has been the most enjoyable of his eight seasons at the club, and lifted the lid on the party atmosphere after the game.
Michail Antonio said: “[It was] a bit of everything – a bit of dancing, a bit of drinking, a bit of something I cannot say! It has been a pleasure obviously. I have been here eight years now. To have this feeling, 58 years West Ham have waited for this moment. It has been amazing, a great experience, probably the best season I have had since I have been at West Ham.”
While both West Ham and Fiorentina supporters created a cauldron of noise in the stadium, for West Ham, there was an east London takeover in the Czech capital, with around 25,000 fans in the city, despite only around 5,000 having match tickets. Antonio said it shows the stature of West Ham as a club and that winning European trophies and being regulars on the continental stage is something that they aspire to do on a regular basis.
Michail Antonio said: “It’s massive, it’s massive. You can see by the stadium, we hold [62,500] in that stadium. I feel like we could easily sell out the stadium three or four times ourselves,” explained Antonio. Moving forward this is not where we are going to stop, we will see if we can keep carrying it on and keep pushing ourselves and keep doing better. Last year we got to the semi-finals of the Europa League. This year, we won the Conference League. You can see we have a good pack of boys here, we have got good confidence and hopefully we can build on that.”
By the time Antonio spoke to the media it was 1:45am on Thursday morning, well over two and a half hours after the full-time whistle blew. Antonio said the post match celebrations were special and that he thinks he and his colleagues will be celebrating for a long time.
Michail Antonio added: “It was unbelievable. Nobody wanted to leave. What’s the time now? It’s quarter to two in the morning and there are still boys in the changing rooms, we have got a party to go and see the families. I don’t see it ending! I don’t see it ending! And now the season is over – so it won’t end for a good three weeks for me! It was a pleasure to speak to you guys. Thank you very much.”
