West Ham vs Lyon LIVE: Europa League result and final score as Ndombele cancels out Bowen’s opener

West Ham’s Alphonse Areola and Kurt Zouma are France team-mates of Lyon captain Léo Dubois. Areola is also on loan at West Ham from his hometown French club Paris Saint-Germain, for whom he has made 107 first-team appearances.

Zouma, meanwhile, was with Lyon’s local rivals Saint-Étienne from 2011 to 2014, scoring away to them in a 1-1 derby draw on 28th April 2013, while another three West Ham players have also belonged to French clubs – Arthur Masuaku (Valenciennes, 2008–14), Saïd Benrahma (Nice, 2013–18) and Issa Diop (Toulouse, 2006–18).

Pablo Fornals hailed the goalscoring return of Jarrod Bowen ahead of West Ham’s historic Europa League showdown with Lyon.

Bowen came back from a month out with a foot injury to score the winner against Everton in the Premier League on Sunday.

“It is massive for us,” said Spanish midfielder Fornals. “Not just for what he brings to the team but also he is encouraging everyone else to fight for a spot.

“That is very good for all of us because it is not going to be easy to get into the team. It is better for us.”

Attention in east London has now shifted to Thursday’s home leg against Ligue 1 Lyon in West Ham’s first European quarter-final for 41 years.

Aaron Cresswell also spoke about West Ham being the favourites to win the competition and he replied: "We don’t want to look from outside and what odds we are.

“We’ve got to concentrate on our game. It’s not going to be easy. Teams don’t get here by luck, you earn the right to be here.

"We’ve earned the right to be here from the past two years. We’ve been fantastic, we came up against arguably the favourites in Sevilla. To overcome that, we’re looking well. We’re fully focused now on Lyon."

Aaron Cresswell summed up the feeling around the London Stadium when he spoke to the media earlier this week.

"It’s arguably the biggest game of my career," said the 32-year-old. "A lot of our squad haven’t been in a European quarter-final before but we’ve earned the right to be there.

"The most important thing is not to get carried away with the home occasion. The atmosphere will be electric but we must make sure we remember there are two games."

The Hammers have arrived at the London Stadium and look in good spirits ahead of kick off at 8pm.

Lyon have played against English clubs 21 times, winning eight, drawing eight and losing six, with five of those defeats coming on English soil.

The Ligue 1 club have yet to win in London, losing twice at Tottenham Hotspur and drawing once at Arsenal.

Will they earn their first win in London tonight?

It has been 42 years since West Ham last won a major trophy which was the 1980-81 FA Cup. They are two rounds away from a spot in the Europa League final but have the difficult tasks of overcoming Lyon and possibly Barcelona to get there. Can they do it?

The Hammers have won 20 of 29 home ties in Europe overall, losing just six, with three victories coming at London Stadium in this season’s Europa League, all with clean sheets.

Lyon, meanwhile, are unbeaten in their last six matches against English opposition, winning four and drawing two, with the most-recent being a 3-1 single-leg Champions League quarter-final success against Manchester City in Lisbon in July 2020.

Last time out in the Europa League was a special occasion for West Ham. Whether this was to be the end of their European dream or one of the most celebrated nights in their recent history, the Hammers were always going to come out swinging.

And when you come at the kings, you best not miss, or you will go down swinging.

Sevilla are indisputably Europa League royalty, their six crowns putting them three ahead of the closest pretenders to the throne, and this year’s final is even set to be staged in their castle: the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan.

It was in that stadium that Sevilla secured a 1-0 win in the first leg of this last-16 tie against West Ham, debutants in the competition this season who did plenty of missing in Spain and were punished by Munir for their wastefulness.

And so David Moyes’s players were tasked with learning on the job against these most experienced of foes, needing to execute an efficiency that was lacking seven days prior.

It was also a new experience for West Ham’s fans, who embraced the occasion by creating an atmosphere unique from any other at the London Stadium since the club’s move here in 2016.

In fact, the feeling inside the ground was unlike any at a West Ham game in not-so-recent memory. Whether or not the Premier League team were to progress, they were certain to be protagonists in one of the most monumental nights the club had seen in decades.

West Ham’s side shows two changes from the one which started the win over Sevilla last time out in the Europa League. The fit-again Jarrod Bowen starts, as does Ryan Fredericks at right-back, with Manuel Lanzini and Ben Johnson on the bench.

Lyon make three changes from the XI which began their victory over Porto in the Round of 16. Caqueret, Karl Toto Ekambi and Leo Dubois are out, replaced by Houssem Aouar, Malo Gusto and Jerome Boateng.