UEFA Soccer: Fulham Continues Miracle Run, Advance to Europa League Final

When Fulham fell behind 1-0 to Hamburg SV just past the quarter-hour mark in the second leg of their Europa League semifinal at Craven Cottage Stadium in London, they should have called it in.

Fulham essentially trailed by 1.5 goals following Mladen Petric’s booming free-kick conversion, needing two goals in 68 minutes to negate Hamburg’s lead.

In over 112 minutes of play against their German foes, Fulham had created few scoring opportunities, and the outlook seemed bleak.

Fulham should have ducked out, counted their blessings, and sent Hamburg on to the final at their home stadium. It would have been the expected thing to do, by all accounts.

Unfortunately for Hamburg, this Fulham side doesn’t exactly see eye-to-eye with expectations.

Simon Davies skillfully equalized in the 69th minute, and Zoltan Gera put Fulham up for good in the 76th minute, to give Fulham a 2-1 victory, and send them to their first-ever Europa League final on May 12 in Hamburg, Germany.

Fulham opened the game looking primed for the early goal that Roy Hodgson’s squad needed to break the 0-0 aggregate score from the first leg.

Surprise starter Bobby Zamora linked up nicely with Gera to get the game’s first great look, only to be denied by Hamburg’s Frank Rost, who saved with a strong left hand twice to only concede a corner.

After a few minutes of solid defending, Hamburg took charge of the game for the next quarter hour. The Red Shirts looked set for the final on their home turf after Petric’s goal.

Following a sloppy Danny Murphy tackle on Hamburg’s Ze Roberto, the Croatian international took the kick from about 30 yards and put it in the left upper-90 past a shuffling Mark Schwarzer.

Hamburg continued to attack for the remainder of the first half. Left-winger Jonathan Pitroipa gathered a pass from Ruud van Nistelrooy in the 39th minute, cutting inside of Fulham right-back John Panstil and putting a powerful strike just to the right of the frame.

Other than that, neither keeper had to do too much work until the second half.

American Clint Dempsey replaced Zamora, who was battling an Achilles injury and wasn’t expected to play, in the 57th minute.

Zamora put in a strong shift, as usual, but he was clearly hobbled, and Dempsey’s substitution opened up space in the middle that Fulham’s attackers would exploit for the two goals.

The first goal came from Davies in the 69th minute after Fulham had been enjoying the majority of possession.

Danny Murphy chipped a lovely pass over the center to Davies, who made a brilliant run behind Hamburg defender Guy Demel.

Davies controlled the pass wonderfully with his right foot, pulling it across his body to his left foot, which then delivered the final strike beneath the arms of Rost and into the back of the net.

That was all the inspiration the crowd at Craven Cottage needed.

The atmosphere in West London turned from nervous to raucous, and the Hamburg players clearly tensed up.

The winning goal came just a few minutes later off of a Fulham corner. Davies, whose reward for scoring was a switch from left wing to right back, earned and took a corner kick on the right side of the Fulham attack just past the 75-minute mark.

Davies’ in-swinging effort bounced clear of any Hamburg defense just outside the six. Dickson Etuhu craftily held off Demel, and Gera charged from inside the six with a gentle right-footed touch away from the goal and a quick turning shot with his left to give Fulham the lead for good.

Hamburg almost got the goal they needed late in the match when van Nistelrooy got a look from the left side of the goal, but his effort sailed wide.

Fulham now advance to the Europa League final in Hamburg, where they will face an Atletico Madrid side that needed a dramatic late goal from Diego Forlan to advance.