Tomas Soucek and Vladimir Coufal were forced to celebrate West Ham’s win over Lyon by themselves with bottles of water after being summoned for a drugs test.
The Czech duo both played the full 90 minutes in the Hammers’ hugely impressive 3-0 Europa League quarter-final win in France on Thursday night. West Ham booked the club’s first European semi-final in 46 years with a dominant performance to go through 4-1 on aggregate to face Eintracht Frankfurt, who shocked Barcelona at the Camp Nou.
West Ham weathered some early pressure and went 1-0 up when Craig Dawson headed in Pablo Fornals’ corner. It was 2-0 before half-time when Declan Rice found the bottom right-hand corner with a deflected effort and Jarrod Bowen added a third with a precise finish into the bottom corner.
It was a historic night for David Moyes’ side, who enjoyed their win with a party atmosphere in the dressing room. Pictures posted on social media showed long-serving club captain Mark Noble in tears, while Rice treated his team-mates to some dance moves after his brilliant performance.
But Soucek and Coufal were not with the rest of the team, having been selected by the authorities for a drugs test. Soucek posted a picture on Twitter showing the Czeck players were their shirts off and holding large bottles of water alongside the caption: “They don’t trust us again!!! Doping test after unique game!!!! Yeeeeeeees!! We are going trough.”
That was far from the only social media activity from West Ham following their win, with Lyon’s tweet after the first leg coming back to haunt them. “Are you really asking like there's a chance we don't go through?” the club’s official account wrote earlier this week. Rice could not resist the chance to respond, adding: “This aged well,” alongside a thumbs-up emoji and laughing face.
There was more humiliation, too, with the West Ham Twitter account keen to get in on the act by poking fun at Lyon striker Moussa Dembele, who had angered the Hammers by winking after getting Aaron Cresswell sent off in the first leg. The club posted a video of Dembele’s wink with the lyrics “hello darkness my old friend” playing over the top and Rice’s celebration appearing.
Moyes was full of praise for his players in his post-match interview. “If you have a good team spirit... all managers would like to get that and it is not easy,” he told BT Sport. “It mainly comes from winning. Good results build it. We have a great group of lads. I'm lucky.
“They have been great in the time I have been here. And the journey in two years from trying to avoid relegation and now we are talking about getting to the semi-final of a major European tournament. It is fabulous and we are all going to look forward to it.”
