West Ham United star Edson Alvarez has insisted it was all smiles in the dressing room following the defeat to Bayer Leverkusen, even though that was tinged with frustration.
The midfielder has been speaking to Fox Sports, relayed by Mexico’s edition of AS, about the game after David Moyes side were knocked out by the Bundesliga champions.
The Hammers headed into the second leg of their clash with Xabi Alonso’s side 2-0 down from the first leg but gave themselves hope when Michail Antonio headed home early on.
They were unable to add to that goal, though, and Jeremie Frimpong’s 89th minute goal only ensured Leverkusen went through 3-1 winners on aggregate and denied West Ham a win at home.
It proved to be a frustrating evening for the home side, who had toiled and indeed performed well in both ties against the highly-fancied Germans, who have gone the entirety of this season unbeaten in all competitions so were undoubtedly favourites for this game.
And it seems that played its part in the reaction in the West Ham dressing room afterwards, at least if Alvarez is to be believed.
“Clearly you feel a lot of frustration, but that’s football,” he said.
“They also controlled the game a little more in the second half with the score in their favour. The only thing that was said in the locker room was that, no matter what happened, we had to leave happy and proud of what we did on the field.”
