JUBILANT Michail Antonio believes West Ham will only get bigger and better after winning their first major trophy in 43 years.
The Jamaican forward joked his own celebrations may last for three weeks as he lifted a second piece of silverware in his career — after the 2010 Johnstone’s Paint Trophy with Southampton.
Tens of thousands of Hammers fans made the journey to the Czech Republic and even more lined the streets for the home parade in East London last night.
Even though they finished 14th in the Premier League after battling relegation, the club will be preparing for the Europa League next season as they are parachuted straight into pot one for the group stages.
Antonio said: “How big is this club? It’s massive. You can see by the stadium, we hold more than 60,000.
“But I feel like we could easily sell out the stadium three or four times ourselves.
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“Moving forward, this is not where we are going to stop.
“We will see if we can keep carrying it on and keep pushing ourselves and doing better.
“Last year we got to the semi-finals of the Europa League. This year, we won the Europa Conference League.
“You can see we have a good pack of boys here. We have got good confidence and hopefully we can build on that.”
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Kicked throughout by Fiorentina defenders, Antonio was bleary-eyed when he finally emerged from the dressing room at 2am in the bowels of the Fortuna Arena.
Asked how the celebrations had been, some of which was streamed live on Instagram by the players, he joked: “There was a bit of everything.
“A bit of dancing, a bit of drinking, a bit of something I cannot say! It has been a pleasure obviously.
“For 58 years, West Ham have waited for this moment in Europe.
“It has been amazing, a great experience, probably the best season I have had since I have been at West Ham.”
Antonio has had to graft in order to win a first major trophy of his career, from starting in non-league with Tooting and Mitcham to a number of loan spells — including stints in the EFL with Cheltenham, Colchester and Sheffield Wednesday.
The 33-year-old added: “Before the game, one of the things I said to the boys was that people don’t get many opportunities like this.
“Many footballers play football and don’t win a single thing in their whole careers.
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“There are some quality players who have done that as well.
“It’s a great opportunity, We had to make sure we didn’t miss out — and we didn’t!”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
