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MOTD: West Ham United 2-2 Everton (9-8 pens)

By on January 13, 2015

Considering of everything that had come before, it is almost impossible to think how confident West Ham United goalkeeper Adrian must have been to take his gloves off before slotting home the winning penalty in an FA Cup epic. Everton’s late equalizer had taken the match into extra-time, and West Ham’s late extra-time equalizer further pushed the match into penalties. Then, with both teams having missed chances to win it previously, it all went down to the two goalkeepers facing each other in the tenth, sudden death, round of spot-kicks. Everton’s goalkeeper, Joel Robles, had hit the crossbar before Adrian stepped up to the plate. Not only did Adrian make it, but looked positively at home doing so.

And yet that goalkeeper faceoff was just the cream of the pie. There had been red cards, fights, incredible goals, incredible misses, and everything in-between in the one-hundred-and-twenty minutes. The match wasn’t just an epic, but as Adrian himself put it, an “unbelievable” one at that. Oh, where to begin?

Neither side deserved to lose – multiple wild swings of fortune swung the pendulum in each team’s favor multiple times. Everton, despite having been reduced to ten men in the first half of normal time, fought back from 1-0 down, to eventually a 2-1 lead halfway through extra-time. West Ham themselves overcame a deficit to win the match. The match had been tight, though Everton looked the more dangerous going forward, all the way into the second half, until Enner Valencia’s diagonal run in behind the Everton defense met Andy Carroll’s though ball, and the Ecuadorian forward tucked a low far post finish from a tight angle to the right of goal past Robles. And with barely a half hour left Everton seemed to do themselves in as Aidan McGeady committed to a late challenge, earning himself his second yellow and a sending off. Everton were down to ten men, but with nothing to lose pushed men forward and low and behold, Kevin Mirallas buried a beautiful curling free-kick into the top right corner, with questions raised of Adrian, to equalize just eight minutes from time.

Despite playing with just ten men Everton continued to dominate going into extra-time, and in the hundred-and-ninth minute completed the comeback as Romelu Lukaku tapped home Mirallas’ squad ball across the six yard box following a mazing run past five defenders. Still, though, the drama wasn’t over and out of nowhere, just after Lukaku had dragged an incredible chance to put the match to bed wide, substitute Carlton Cole got onto a tap-down from a corner and poked the ball home. Thus, penalties ensued.

The theme of the shoutout had to be poor penalties – of twenty taken, only six were actually good spot-kicks, the other ten which found their way in simply outsmarted the goalkeeper. Steven Naismith saw his blocked so Stewart Downing was given the chance to win it, only for Robles to then save his low effort and push it into sudden death. Up came the defenders, and finally, the goalkeepers. Robles shot on Adrian first, in the tenth round, and went for what he knows best, a goal-kick-esque effort down the middle. Unlike Carl Jenkinson’s similar penalty before him, Robles hit the bottom of the crossbar and bounced back out. Adrian new what the stakes were, a ticket to the FA Cup Fourth Round, if he made it, and certainly enough, right after he threw his right glove to the ground, ran up and outsmarted Robles to bury his penalty.
Man of the Match: Kevin Mirallas

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.