WEST HAM ended their Romania hoodoo on a history-making European night as Fornals nets twice.
The Hammers became the first team since the Europa Conference League’s inception last year to win six from six group stage games after a comfortable victory over FCSB.
On his 150th appearance for the club out in Bucharest, Pablo Fornals scored twice in a first win in five on Romanian soil – a run dating back to 1980.
Cruelly, 18-year-old academy graduate Divin Mubama was denied a goal on his senior debut, with his deflected header being awarded as an own goal for defender Joyskim Dawa.
Having already topped their group, boss David Moyes took advantage of this dead rubber to also hand a starting debut to another homegrown talent in Ollie Scarles.
At 16 years and 326 days, midfielder Scarles is the sixth youngest debutant in West Ham’s history, and came close to scoring himself.
The bench had an average age of just under 19 – excluding 35-year-old back-up keeper Darren Randolph – with several of them being chucked on late on.
A total of four home grown talents started the game, including Conor Coventry and Ben Johnson – the latter teeing up Fornals with a long ball in the 40th minute.
Replays showed the Spaniard – also becoming the first West Ham player to chalk up 20 Euro outings – was clearly offside before volleying home but the goal stood with no VAR to call on.
Skipper Declan Rice stayed at home for this one, alongside the likes of Gianluca Scamacca, Michail Antonio, Jarrod Bowen, Said Benrahma, Craig Dawson and Tomas Soucek.
Fornals made sure of the result with an acrobatic 65th minute finish, their 13th goal of the group stages – a tally only Villarreal and Basaksehir could better.
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