Union “last minute” in der Conference League!
Tor in der “injury time”! 1. FC Union “come from behind“, gewinnt und bleibt damit auf Platz 7, der die Qualifikation für die neue Conference League bedeutet! Gladbach nützt dagegen der 4:2-Sieg in Bremen nichts, aber Werder steigt nun zusammen mit Schalke ab; für den 1.FC Köln geht‘s in die Relegation gegen Greuther Fürth oder Holstein Kiel. Für EISERN UNION dagegen nach Europa!!!
Union begann das Heimspiel vor 2000 Zuschauern in der Alten Försterei gegen RB Leipzig selbstbewusst und kam gleich zu Beginn zu einer Chance durch Max Kruse, als dieser versuchte, aus 40 Metern Leipzigs Schlussmann Josep Martinez zu überlupfen (5.).
Die Gäste hatten zwar in der Folge mehr vom Spiel, kamen aber nicht wirklich gefährlich vors Tor von Andreas Luthe.
In der 34. Minute war es dann Unioner Petar Musa, der im Sechzehner zum Abschluss kam und Martinez in die falsche Ecke schickte – Pfosten!
Zehn Minute später waren die Leipziger der Führung nahe, als Emil Forsberg aus fünf Metern gegen den stark parierenden Luthe den Kürzeren zog. Mehrere Unioner warfen sich in die folgenden Abpraller und entschärften die Situation (44.).
Mit der ersten Chance der zweiten Halbzeit kamen die Eisernen direkt zu einer Ecke, die die Gäste in Not blocken konnten.
In der 55. gingen die Leipziger durch Justin Kluivert in Führung.
Doch die Köpenicker gaben nicht auf. Nach einer Ecke – getreten natürlich von Christopher Trimmel – nahm Marvin Friedrich das Leder volley und erzielte den Ausgleich (67.).
Die Hausherren warfen unter tosendem Applaus alles nach vorne und kamen in der Nachspielzeit doch noch zum Siegtreffer: Kruse erzielte den goldenen Treffer für den Europapokal (92.)!
Spielbericht: https://www.fc-union-berlin.de/de/union-live/news/profis/Union-besiegt-Leipzig-mit-2-1-20353S
Coming from behind – up to 6th again!
Supporters, as well as friends, are welcomed back
Supporters will not only be back in the stands by next season, a reduced capacity of seats is already allowed to be filled in the penultimate and the last round of this season’s Premier League. In their upcoming two games the Hammers have to win twice and also need “A little help from my friends”, at least from one of Tottenham‘s opponents, to secure Europa League football.
Thanks to easing the COVID 19-restrictions in England, in the penultimate and the last round of the 2020/21 Premier League supporters can come back into the grounds. However we’re far from full capacities being allowed, e.g. 7,500 (25%) of seats are going to be filled at The Hawthorns when West Ham travel to West Brom for their last away game of the season tonight.
When the game starts, West Ham will already know Tottenham’s result against Aston Villa. Spurs are level on points but have a superior goal difference over the Irons and therefore sit in 6th which means they would play in the Europa League next season. The club in 7th will earn qualification for the inaugural European Conference League.
To leapfrog Tottenham, West Ham would need “a little help from my friends“ in claret & blue tonight or from Leicester on Sunday. In the last round Spurs will be hosted by Leicester which are fighting to qualify for the Champions League and could lose this spot to Liverpool if they fail to get points from that game, following their defeat to Chelsea last night. The Hammers are going to welcome 10,000 supporters and Southampton at London Stadium for the last match of this extraordinary season.
https://youtu.be/awBy_K30Pe8
With four points from the remaining games West Ham couldn’t be pushed away from the Conference League spot by Leeds, Everton or Arsenal, the clubs behind them. But to leapfrog Spurs and climb back into a place in the Europa League, the Hammers have to win their games and need help from Aston Villa or Leicester in their matches against Spurs.
I well remember that 2006 West Ham beat their London rivals in the last game of the season to deny them a place in the Champions League. It would be no mean feat for West Ham to qualify for the Conference League just one year after just avoiding relegation, but to come off ahead of Spurs and occupy one of the Europa League spots would really be a great finish to an unexpected successful season.
Come on you mighty Irons!
Brighton Blues For Hammers
The Hammers’ Champions League hopes lie in ruins after their 1:1 draw at Brighton
Brighton West Pier has been declared beyond repair by the English Heritage Trust
Having played a superb season so far, recently the Irons have had to pay for punching above their weight for so long with a relatively small squad. It also seems that opponents have learned how to deal with Jesse Lingard who couldn’t score a goal since his penalty in the 2-3 loss at Newcastle. West Ham have only one win from their last 5 games and with the draw on the south coast their top-four hopes have suffered a final blow. Now they have to pick themselves up and make sure in their remaining games against West Brom and Southampton that Europa League football will be played in London Stadium next season!
However, the result could have been worse if Said Benrahma hadn’t equalised Danny Welbeck’s late goal for the Seagulls (84.). Benrahma’s beautiful strike from outside the box was his first goal after 31 appearances. It gives hope that the former Brentford man who scored 27 goals in 83 league games for the Bees will come good, and that West Ham will hold on in the last two games of the season.
Manager David Moyes, who feels that their top-four aspirations have already disappeared, is now hoping his side can rouse themselves to earn a place in the Europa League.
“We’re trying to get a place in European football if we can. We’re still in a good place for that. It’s a great thing to say we’re in a good shout with two games to go.” (David Moyes)
Brighton & Hove Albion 1-1 (0-0)
Lingard Double and Moyes Sustainability
Jesse Lingard’s sensational strike at Wolverhampton Wanderers has won the Budweiser Premier League Goal of the Month award for April. The award completed a superb double for Lingard, who was also named EA Sports Premier League Player of the Month for April after scoring four goals and assisting a fifth in four Premier League appearances.
The England attacker (28) held off the challenge of Pablo Fornals, who also received a nomination for his own fine goal in West Ham United’s 3-2 win at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Lingard opened the scoring with a wonderful individual effort that saw him collect the ball from Vladimír Coufal well inside his own half before running at the Wolves defence, taking advantage of a clever decoy run from Michail Antonio, before confidently and accurately finishing past Rui Patricio with his left foot.
West Ham won their first two games of April with the same result, beating Wolves and Leicester 3:2. In these games and also in their last match of March against Arsenal, the Hammers had managed to rush into a 3-goal-lead in each of these fixtures. When they could hold on to this advantage in two consecutive matches, with Lingard scoring twice in the win over third-placed Leicester and Mark Noble marking his 400th Premier League appearance in this game, the Irons sometimes were in front of Chelsea in fourth place and still have a chance to achieve qualification for the Champions League.
But with three defeats from the following four matches in April and May, the Irons now have to take care that they win their last three games against Brighton, West Brom and Southampton – otherwise the still existing possibility of Champions League football and seemingly certain qualification for the Europa League (for which the clubs ranked fifth to eighth will qualify) could end in final despair as West Ham still could drop down to tenth…
I hope and think this won’t happen. But it could become a nervy finish to the end of the season as West Ham now could suffer from the fact that its squad is quite slim and Declan Rice has been out for more than six weeks. The talismanic midfielder was injured in the Three Lions‘ win over Poland by the end of March and has not played ever since.
But I want to end on a positive note: Manager David Moyes has worked wonders with West Ham and kept his promise to improve the club. He has added steel and a winning mentality to his squad and made sure that the Irons wouldn’t be a team that could be easily beaten anymore.
Therefore we have been witnessing a real “Moyes March” out of mediocrity after the collapse of the “Pellegrini Revolution” which turned out to have been just a Chilean intermezzo between Moyes’s first and second spell. We do not know yet if the Irons will play in Europe and if Manchester Utd loanee Jesse Lingard will be with them next season, but one thing is for sure: It’s David Moyes who’s here to stay and long may he and his Hammers run!
Come on you Irons!
The Battle For Europe
A look at the Premier League run-in after Chelsea’s win over “champions elect” Manchester City and ahead of West Ham’s Sunday game at home against Everton:
ManCity unexpectedly lost 1:2 against their future opponents in the CL final (with Aguero missing a penalty and Chelsea scoring in injury time), which meant that they will have to wait at least until next week’s game against Newcastle to be crowned PL champions. However, if the Sky Blues lose at St James’s Park next Friday, they still could be leapfrogged by Manchester United in the last three rounds if the Red Devil’s win all their remaining games…
That’s quite unlikely, but well, who would have thought that Leicester would be defeated by Newcastle 2:4 on Friday night?
This unexpected result could mean that West Ham could still make the Champions League despite fourth placed Chelsea being on a very fine run and difficult to be caught. In a discussion on BT-Sports Glenn Hoddle as well as Rio Ferdinand said they think that Leicester (after suffering that shock loss against Newcastle and having very difficult games ahead) could finish outside of the Champions League places with West Ham capitalising. What a finish to this season that would be!
Come on you Irons!
Wie kann man nur….
… mit so einem hässlichen Auswärtsdress in einem Semifinale antreten?
Roma 3-2 Man Utd (5-8 on aggregate): Solskjaer’s side through to Europa League final!
The Champions League final will be an all English affair with Manchester City and Chelsea meeting in Istanbul on 29 May. But with Arsenal having been eliminated by the “Yellow Submarine”, the Europa League final in Gdańsk three days earlier will see a match between Spanish side Villarreal (under former Arsenal boss Emery) and Manchester United.
The “yellow submarine” which eliminated the Austrian representative Salzburg in the first knockout round of this season’s competition, are the only club from the continent that made a final this year preventing a repeat of 2019. In that year both European Cup finals were played between English outfits when Liverpool and Tottenham were the opponents in the final of the Champions League in Madrid (2:0), and Chelsea and Arsenal played the final of the Europa League in Baku (4:1).
This year’s finals will be played in Istanbul and Gdańsk. The CL Final is rumoured to be played in front of 19,000 spectators, while in Gdańsk 9,500 fans will be allowed into the stadium.
Fußballklubs unter Denkmalschutz!
Nach dem Super League Desaster wird es neue Regeln für die Fußballklubs geben. Wie groß der Ärger über die Gründung der schließlich schnell gescheiterten Super League ist und wie sich über Jahre angestaute Unzufriedenheit mit den “billionaire owners” der Klubs nun entlädt, zeigte der Stadion-Sturm von ManUtd Fans am Wochenende. Das erste „Geisterspiel mit Platzsturm“! Und die Forderung der Fans, die überall lauter wird, heißt Mitsprache! Wie bei einem unter Denkmalschutz stehenden Gebäude sollen die Eigentümer der Klubs damit nicht mehr tun und lassen können, was sie wollen (aus The Telegraph):
Malcolm Clarke, chair of the Football Supporters’ Association, said that a “seismic” moment had arrived and stressed that the Government’s review into football, which will be overseen by former sports minister Tracey Crouch, must lead to meaningful fan involvement.
“[A football club] is a bit like a listed building,” Clarke said. “Just because you own it doesn’t mean you should be able to do what you want with it. What this whole episode shows is how frustrated supporters are. If the ‘rebel six’ have done one good thing for us, they have pushed those issues right to the top of the political agenda and public agenda in a way that some of us have been trying for decades.”
Fit (and Rich Enough) for Office?
The Times on Sunday reports that Prime Minister Johnson has told friends that he needs to earn about £300,000 a year — twice his salary — to keep his head above water. Johnson’s salary puts him close to the top 1 per cent of UK earners. Yet he makes less than Angela Merkel’s £267,000 or Joe Biden’s £290,000. Luxembourg, with a population roughly equivalent to that of Sheffield, pays its prime minister £200,000.
EXTRA TIME 
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