Pre-season is regularly considered as a period to develop vital match fitness, experiment with tactics, and refine strategies. In and amongst the preparation, it’s always pleasing to win games, as West Ham can testify.
In our latest pre-season fixture, we defeated Mainz on penalties following a 1-1 draw in normal time. It certainly was a dramatic conclusion to the game, as we triumphed 7-6 in the penalty shoot-out. Toni Martinez impressed during his stint off the bench, as he managed to give us the lead in the second half.
That said, we were unable to retain our lead for long, as Robin Quaison equalised for the German side. With both teams missing their initial penalties, it was the full-back, Gaëtan Bussmann who missed the decisive penalty to secure victory for the Hammers – Adrian even got in on the action with a successful penalty.
It’s fair to say that West Ham supporters were pleased with the triumph, as their reaction on Twitter demonstrates.
https://twitter.com/lethal_lanzini/status/1024369282631839746
https://twitter.com/christlog/status/1024369589096992768
https://twitter.com/WestHamJimbo/status/1024371076875407360
https://twitter.com/D_G_00DYWHUFC/status/1024372909350027265
https://twitter.com/DiopGot/status/1024386918753165312
The Betway Cup is finally coming home 😂⚒
— Josh⚒🫧 (@JoshVernege) July 31, 2018
https://twitter.com/Georgebrignull1/status/1024409223185223680
https://twitter.com/Brady__Neal/status/1024380149112995840
They invent a cup for us to win and we made extremely hard work of it 🤔
— TheGeeMan (@TheGeeMan007) July 31, 2018
What are your thoughts? Let us know!