After 36 minutes here, West Ham were heading out of Europe. By the 70th, so confident was David Moyes of a place in the semi-finals that he could make changes with Sunday’s Premier League six-pointer against Bournemouth in mind.
So how did we end up here?
Lucas Paqueta’s penalty certainly helped, nudging the Hammers ahead in this quarter-final tie for the first time since they were pegged back in Gent a week ago. So too did Michail Antonio’s double, the first an equaliser on the night, the second capping what turned into a rampant 4-1 win.
But when West Ham fans look back on this game with special fondness - and for the first time on this Europa Conference League run, you can say with firm confidence that they will - the answer that will spring to mind, as is so often the case around here, will be Declan Rice.
There are some who say that Rice does not do enough to warrant West Ham’s gargantuan price-tag, those who think that, despite living an era when transfer market inflation outstrips even that on the shelves of your local Tesco, £100million remains a scandalous amount of money to pay for a bloke who passes sideways and makes a few tackles. Pity them all, then, for this was another poor night for that agenda.
When the Englishman picked up the ball inside his own half on 58 minutes and drove forward, West Ham were ahead but only just, 3-2 up on aggregate having already come from behind on the night, Antonio and Paqueta replying to Hugo Cuypers’ opener either side of the break.
As Rice set off, though, there was no stopping his charge into Gent territory, the midfielder too powerful, too dynamic for a hapless defender as, with a clever shift onto his weaker left-foot, he swept West Ham into a second successive European semi-final.
That is a remarkable achievement for a club of this size, however others might look down their noses at Uefa’s third-rate tournament. It could yet offer a route back into Europe next term, too, with AZ Alkmaar now standing between Moyes’s side and a shot at glory in June.
As against Arsenal on Sunday, Rice’s display showed why this season will be his last in claret and blue, but as he was applauded off by all four corners, few will have been worrying about what comes beyond the next two months, with a final in Prague still on the table as stage for a fitting send-off.
Believe it or not, even beyond Cuypers’ opener, there were signs that this mightn’t be a straightforward evening for West Ham. The first came a couple of hours before kick-off, a couple of hundred miles away in Holland, where Alkmaar were overturning a two-goal deficit against Anderlecht, thus scuppering any logistical gamblers who’d taken a punt on cheap early travel to a semi-final in Brussels.
One suspects, though, that there won’t have been many bold enough, nor stupid enough - and certainly none who’ve watched this West Ham too often this season.
A 3-0 first-leg win in Gent would not have been sufficient insurance for some to take the plunge, let alone last week’s 1-1 scoreline, which left the tie so finely poised and teed up a night that promised drama, delivered it, and yet somehow finished with half-an-hour of joyous celebration.
By then, Rice was sat virtually among the home crowd, smiling on the bench, his substitution having been accompanied by the stadium announcer’s assertion that his solo effort constituted the goal of the season.
That kind of crowning probably lies beyond the PA’s jurisdiction, but, unlike with those whose who still doubt Rice’s all-round calibre, the case against seems tough to argue.
