💫 ❓ Three big questions ahead of the UECL final | OneFootball

West Ham are looking to end a 43-year wait for a major trophy in Wednesday’s Europa Conference League final but will have to get past Fiorentina to do so.

Here are the three biggest questions ahead of the match in Prague.

Where will the game be won and lost?

Both teams go into the game in respectable form with Fiorentina having lost just three of their last 10 games while the Hammers won three out of their last seven to ensure Premier League safety.

Two sides that started the season with a stutter have found their bite when it matters most which should warrant an exciting spectacle ahead this evening.

Vincenzo Italiano’s side are a side that likes to play a high line and attack the opposition at speed. Forward Arthur Cabral, Luka Jović and Nicolás González have all hit double figures and the team will certainly win a few admirers from English fans who may not be familiar with their work.

But their commitment to forcing the initiative could play into the hands of the Hammers who under David Moyes have nailed down most of their success to hitting teams on the counter-attack.

Jarrod Bowen and Lucas Paquetá will be licking their lips at the space they will be afforded to attack in and if West Ham are going to win their first trophy since 1981 then it will likely be down to these two having joy on the break.

Can Jović banish his final demons?

For Fiorentina, this is the second major final they have contested in the space of as many weeks.

And they will be hoping this one ends better than that Coppa Italia final outing against Inter in Rome when a Lautaro Martínez brace banished their chances of lifting a first trophy since 2001.

It was a night when many of the fingers of blame were pointed squarely in the direction of Luka Jović.

In front of a packed Stadio Olimpico with silverware at stake, the Serbian striker missed three glorious chances for goals which could and should have delivered the trophy to Tuscany.

His tears at full-time said it all about how guilty he felt with his part in the defeat but the good thing about Fiorentina’s season means that he has been offered an instant shot at redemption and opportunity to take the chances he spurned that night and end the Viola’s long wait for glory.

“Jović, and [fellow forward] Arthur Cabral, must do what he has always done tomorrow,” coach Vincenzo Italiano said in the pre-match press conference. “That is put the ball in the net and I hope to see him celebrate doing that. The season ends in this game so everyone needs to give 100%.”

Over to you, Luka.

Where does Declan Rice sit in West Ham history?

Bobby Moore was the last West Ham captain to lift a European trophy.

Billy Bonds was the last to lift any major trophy.

On Wednesday, in what is widely expected to be his final game for the club, Declan Rice could do both. Plenty of academy graduates have become England regulars over the past few decades but Rice is the only one to do so while still wearing Claret and Blue.

Rice is set to bring in a massive amount of money for the club as he moves on but there will be something missing if he leaves empty-handed.

He is already a club icon but many of those, from Mark Noble and Joe Cole to Paolo Di Canio and Carlos Tevez, have left the club without silverware.

Rice, then, has the opportunity to put himself right alongside the absolute greats in the Hammers’ pantheon of legends.