West Ham reach Euro Conference Final.

 West Ham reach Euro Conference Final.

For a minute or two you had to pinch yourself. Clearly this was never meant to be. Maybe we'd wake up the following morning and find that it was a genuine, bona fide dream, an exaggeration and distortion, a fallacy beyond belief, something that happened in some made up sentence, almost a plagiarism of the true facts. But it did, you know. You weren't kidding and it is going ahead on June 9th whether you like it or not.

Your lifelong football allegiance West Ham United are in the Euro Conference Final in Prague, Czechia against Fiorentina of Italy. Now in the grander scheme of things a trophy in some allegedly third class European football Final may seem a touch odd and bizarre but after a 47 year drought, you'll take anything as long as fits in a club trophy cabinet. There was a time when you must have despaired of ever getting even remotely close to winning anything ever again. But your football team have done it, cracked the code and will now contest one of the newest European club tournaments in a Final.

West Ham, in an enthralling and absorbing Euro Conference semi final against Dutch pass masters AZ Alkmaar, beat their Dutch counterparts and find themselves in completely alien territory. This is not forbidden territory since a trophy may be long overdue. But this is a facetious comment since West Ham have always been regarded as pathetic outsiders in any competition, no hopers, believers and dreamers but once again they are now challenging for a trophy that must have seemed as elusive as some fondly held ambition.

On Thursday evening the stars were aligned, the moon roughly in the right position and fate may be wearing claret and blue shirts. For long periods of their semi final against Alkmaar, West Ham were passed into oblivion by the flying Dutchmen. There were moments when you could almost hear and see the fleet footed Johan Cruyff and Johan Neeskens in everything Alkmaar tried to execute. The Dutch footballing mentality is of course the official template of how football should be played. It is Total Football with all the seasonings and sauces, textures and tonalities you could wish for.

And yet for all their possession and domination of the game, AZ Alkmaar failed to ram home their overall superiority on the night. West Ham, of course, were just grateful for small mercies since their domestic season has been so awfully wretched that a European club competition that none of us have really taken seriously seemed no more than a smokescreen to West Ham's often perilous Premier League plight. But West Ham have pulled off the most incredible achievement against a grim backdrop of a relegation struggle.

At Sunday lunchtime West Ham face a Leeds side in roughly the same position as themselves. But this time they face a team managed by a man whose footballing principles at Upton Park attracted so much hatred and opprobrium that you wondered if West Ham fans could ever forgive the club. Sam Allardyce has been hired as a temporary firefighter at Leeds United and with the domestic Premier League season a week away from conclusion, both Allardyce and West Ham will stare across the London Stadium tomorrow and wonder what on earth had happened to both West Ham and Leeds United.

Mathematically West Ham can still be relegated to the Championship but you can only hope the sun will shine on the righteous and ensure another Premier League season at the London Stadium. For now their thoughts and hearts are still firmly lodged in what promises to be one of the biggest nights of European football. For various reasons their domestic season has been into some chaotic turmoil and finger nails are being bitten with some trepidation. But West Ham against Fiorentina in a European club final sounds almost too good to be true.

However, on Thursday night the small knot of faithful West Ham fans were still shouting the odds even when it looked as if it might all fall apart at the seams. Declan Rice was still organising, marshalling, directing, gesturing and reprimanding if necessary at the heart of his defence as captain of the club. Rice is vitally important to West Ham, a considerable influence, spreading assurance and smooth command as a defensive and attacking midfielder but his mind may have been completely preoccupied by transfer talk.

With Kurt Zouma, Aaron Cresswell, Vladimir Coufal all combining supremely and intelligently at the back for West Ham there was an air of togetherness and authenticity to some of their blocks and interceptions. West Ham were singing from the song book, marching forward in unison and firmly believing that something special was in the air. But once again the tremulous vulnerability and fragility was always there for everybody to see. Alkmaar were impeccably patient and dangerous whenever they had the ball and it just looked as if all the hard work West Ham had done in the games leading up to this one, would be undone sooner rather than later.

But then Rice and Tomas Soucek stepped up to the plate, holding a defiant line before switching the ball quickly and incisively to overlapping wingers. Now Jarred Bowen and Said Benrahma acknowledged each other as an attacking force, scurrying, scampering and scavenging into wide acres of space. West Ham's football had an urgency and almost gravitas that almost turned this match into a play by Chekhov. The claret and blue battalions were at their most disciplined and had to be under the circumstances.

In the first half West Ham threatened spasmodically to extend their 2-1 lead over AZ Alkmaar from the first leg at the London Stadium. But with the dogged Michal Antonio now desperately trying to outmuscle his Dutch defender, it felt as if an elastic band had been stretched across the whole of an equally as valiant West Ham defence.

However in the second half Alkmaar nimbly and cleverly tiptoed their way through a petrified claret and blue wall. There were a whole sequence of delightful one twos, simple and breathless passes between the home side and you almost felt as if an equaliser from the home side was almost inevitable. Thankfully for those of a West Ham persuasion, nothing seemed to stick for Alkmaar. They were good but not that good.

With the game in its final minutes the pace was non stop and relentless and we sensed the worst case scenario for the Hammers. Then, as if on cue, West Ham picked up a loose ball on the half way line and a final flourish came to joyous fruition. Pablo Fornals broke away decisively and without hesitation, ran confidently towards goal before drilling the ball into the back of the net for West Ham, a well deserved winner. It's Prague from here but Fiorentina await in the Euro Conference Final. What a season and what a team.