Michail Antonio’s smile said it all.
West Ham United’s scintillating second half performance against KAA Gent had just set up a second successive European semi-final and Antonio’s brace played a huge part in sealing it.
Antonio’s 37th-minute header helped settle home nerves after Hugo Cuypers’ second goal of the tie had given the Belgian Cup holders a 2-1 aggregate lead midway through the opening period at London Stadium.
Then, after Paquetá netted an ice-cold penalty and Declan Rice carried the ball 70 yards before scoring a spectacular third, Antonio capped a memorable night with his second of the contest and record-equalling eighth continental goal for the Club.
It meant West Ham secured a 4-1 second-leg victory and 5-2 aggregate success, setting up a final-four clash with Dutch side AZ Alkmaar.
“We made hard work of it last week and again today going 1-0 down, but we always believed in ourselves and it was a good victory in the end,” the No9 explained.
“How it started off and how it ended, the boys are buzzing. Today was a day when you could see the confidence started oozing from us in the second half, with how we pressed them and the goals we scored.”
West Ham might have gone one goal down in the opening period, but as Antonio explained, that was no reason to hit the panic button.
They retained the necessary belief to turn the tie back in their favour and Gent could not live with their second half display.
“The manager said at half-time that we were playing well, but one slack moment in defence and we managed to concede,” he continued.
“But he said to go out there and just keep on playing how we’re playing. Going forward we were making mistakes, but we just had to settle down and make sure we found our players in the final third.
“That’s what we did to be fair, we went out there and started pressing them constantly. We were getting on their toes – the chances started dropping for us and we took them.”
Having reached the last four in Europe for a second year in a row, now the task for Antonio and his teammates is to ensure they do not feel the same disappointment as they did after the meeting with Eintracht Frankfurt last season.
The striker is determined to step out onto the pitch at the Eden Arena in Prague for the final on 7 June.
“Our plan is to get to the final and we just want to build up momentum to get there, so we need to keep winning games – that’s winning in the Premier League, winning in Europe, because obviously to get to the final you have to keep winning,” he added.
“We’re in the semi-finals two years running, that’s a difficult task on it’s own, so hopefully this year we can win it.
"The feeling we got last year [losing the semi-final] was awful so hopefully we don't have to feel that again. We believe. We believed last year that we would go on to win it, this team believes we will [go one better]. We will go out there, give it our all and hopefully we can keep playing the way we are now."
