For Mexican midfielder Edson Álvarez, of West Ham United, elimination in the UEFA Europa League It was more than a hard blow, since he firmly believed that the Premier League team would have the arguments to leave Bayer Leverkusen, current Bundesliga champion, on the way, but in the end the 2-0 in the first leg was decisive so that this Thursday they had to go home to rest with a 1-1 draw (1-3 overall) that generated a lot of frustration in the former América player.
Álvarez had a great performance in the midfield of the so-called “Hammers” by cutting off the German team’s circuits, especially preventing Florian Wirtz from creating danger and completely limiting him in the first 45 minutes. The Mexican was key in West Ham’s operation, as he has been throughout the season.
However, He was substituted near the end of the match, at 84′, as David Moyes With Maxwel Cornet he sought greater presence in the area to score the goal he was missing to force extra time.
The plan did not bear fruit: West Ham did not have clear chances to equalize the score global and little by little the illusions of continuing to advance in the European competition were diluted.
For that reason, Edson Álvarez shared his bitterness in an interview with Fox Sports: “Clearly, there is a lot of frustration, but that’s football. They also controlled the game a little more in the second half with the score in their favor. The only thing that was said in the locker room was that, no matter what happened, we had to leave happy and proud of what we did on the field.”
The former América player explained: “We had a lot of faith in reaching the next round, We planned the game to move forward and in the first half we had the opportunity to increase the score and force a more even game, but that is football and that makes me sad and sad.”
Edson too He took time to respond to the compliments that Bayer Leverkusen coach, Xabi Alonso, made about his style., recently champion with the Bavarians team, who explained: “He adapts very well to the new league, I know him well from Ajax, I have followed him. He had an important weight on the team, they surely missed him. He is very complete, he is good with the ball, he is aggressive against the ball, he gives it a lot of judgment.”
The so-called “Machín” said about these comments from Alonso: “That motivates more to continue working, doing things well. Nothing more, happy and excited for the future.”
Now West Ham will focus their batteries on the Premier League to place themselves as best as possible and have a chance to sneak into the European competitions, where they currently occupy eighth place and are two units away from reaching a place in the Conference League, currently in the hands of Newcastle United.
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