West Ham's unlikely lads standing on cusp of glory

Night of destiny for both Moyes and Rice, but supporting cast will have big say in final

- Malik Ouzia

THE CONTRAST between captain and manager was clear: Declan Rice, ahead of his final West Ham outing, talking about legacy; David Moyes, who yesterday insisted he wants to stay on at the Hammers, giving short shrift to the prospect of becoming a legend.

"I don't think of myself as any different to anyone else in this room," Moyes said in his press conference at Eden Arena here in Prague, where tonight his side face Fiorentina in the club's first major European final in 47 years. "I'm really fortunate and privileged and thankful to be given an opportunity to be a football manager and to have the opportunity to go this far in my career and be on a stage like this.

"I don't ever really think of myself as being a legend or any words like that. I'd just like to be known as a football manager."

Whatever his hesitancy, there is something deeply personal about this final for Moyes, the 60-year-old having ridden out the season's criticism to stand on the precipice of the first major silverware in his long career. He admitted that having watched contemporaries and rivals take their shots at glory for years while working on some of the sport's biggest games for UEFA, it felt "surreal" to be, at last, the man in the box-seat.

For Rice, at 24 and about to spread his wings, there is less a sense of urgency, but no less desperation; the opportunity there to sign off from the club that believed in him when others did not, from the club he has come to define, in fitting style.

The captain, notably, was spared media duties yesterday, presumably for fear the occasion would be dominated by talk of his future, but issued something of a rallying call on club channels.