Europa Conference League joy for West Ham on another shameful night for football: Winners and losers as bloodied Cristiano Biraghi sours Irons' famous win over Fiorentina

Just like West Ham, Bowen's not had a particularly good season overall. Let's not forget, he was being linked with Liverpool after an excellent 2021-22 campaign. There has been no such talk this summer. Yet Bowen remains a very dangerous winger, as he proved in such decisive fashion in Prague.

It was he who forced the penalty from which West Ham opened the scoring and, far more importantly, it was he who won the cup with a left-footed finish after the most perfectly timed run in behind the Fiorentina defence in the 90th minute.

So, it's been one hell of a finish to the season for Bowen. He had twins with Dani Dyer, the daughter of actor and die-hard West Ham fan, Danny, a few weeks ago and now he's delivered the Conference League trophy - fair to say he's just become a Hammers legend for life!

There was a time when Luka Jovic looked like he was going to become one of the best strikers in the world. Real Madrid didn't buy him on a whim, after all. They paid €60m for the Serb in the summer of 2019, after Jovic had lit up the Europa League with Eintracht Frankfurt, and scored 27 times in all competitions.

Sad to say, he's now looking like something of a one-season wonder. We've seen flashes of quality since he brought his Madrid nightmare to an end in January of last year by joining Fiorentina, initially on loan. But it was actually a shock that he started the final ahead of Arthur Cabral, who has not only scored more goals this season, but also worked far harder.

In that context, it was not in the least bit surprising to see Jovic hauled off at half-time in Prague. He may have had a goal disallowed in injury-time at the end of the first half, but he had contributed absolutely nothing to the cause in the preceding 45 minutes and was one of the main reasons why Fiorentina had failed to turn their possession into actual chances.

The sight of David Moyes joyously jumping up and down on the pitch should have brought a smile to the face of every neutral. Seriously, who could begrudge the Scot his first European honour? Beppe Bergomi pointed out that "West Ham are not a team that really plays football" but Moyes won't care. He's been through so much - even just this season alone, with his job in doubt after a dreadful campaign in which West Ham flirted with relegation.

It's still by no means certain that he will still be at the helm next season, of course. He could yet be sacked, which is why he's presently being linked with the current vacancy at Celtic. However, no matter what happens next, he's now got a major trophy to his name.

Just under a decade after being humiliatingly sacked only seven months into his dream job at Manchester United, Moyes' reputation as a good manager has finally been restored.

Because there's so much on the line, finals bring out the best in players - but also the worst. They will essentially do whatever it takes to win, and while that can mean putting one's body on the line for the good of the team, it also often results in the most shameful displays of simulation you're ever likely to see.

Honestly, it seemed highly unlikely that anyone in Prague could 'better' Lorenzo Pellegrini's dive in Budapest last week, with the Roma ace throwing himself to the ground roughly 10 minutes after deliberately making contact with an opponent's outstretched leg. Therefore, enormous credit must go to Said Benrahma for a dive so poor, so obvious, so stupid (he was actually in a shooting position at the time) and so absurd, that it actually provoked laughter among the commentary team on Sky Sport Italia.

It's a serious problem, though, and one that the game's lawmakers remain mystifyingly reluctant to resolve. Because the solution is still obvious: don't let them away with just booking; make simulation a red-card offence.

And if any offences are missed by referees during games - which often happens because most divers are far more skilled than Benrahma - the culprits should be hit with retrospective bans. At this stage, it's the only way to rid 'The Beautiful Game' of one of its ugliest issues.

UEFA make an awful lot of poor decisions in general, but particularly in relation to its tournaments, and their respective formats. To pick out just one example, the 'Swiss Model' we'll soon see in the Champions League is an absolute shocker. It'll mean more money for clubs - but more boring games for the fans.

However, credit where it's due: the Europa Conference League, which was greeted with no end of scepticism, is proving quite the success. Winning the inaugural title meant the absolute world to not only Roma, but also two-time Champions League winner Jose Mourinho.

It essentially offers clubs with big fanbases but small budgets a chance to challenge for a major European trophy in an era dominated by money. Wednesday night was another case in point. Neither Fiorentina nor West Ham had won a top continental prize since the now defunct Cup Winners Cup - and that was all the way back in the 1960s.

Consequently, supporters of both sides turned out in force, both in Prague and back home, to watch the game, once again vindicating UEFA's decision to reintroduce a third-tier cup.

Losing a cup final is tough to take. Losing two in the space of two weeks is damn near unbearable, particularly when you've been the better side in both. So, Vincenzo Italiano cut an understandably frustrated figure on the touchline after the final whistle had blown, and then looked utterly disconsolate in his first post-match interview, with Sky Sport Italia. The Fiorentina coach was visibly furious with the way in which his side conceded the winner and was particularly incensed with Igor Julio, the substitute that he felt should have been able to stop Bowen from scoring.

However, Italiano is going to have to field some awkward questions himself. He has done an excellent job this season with very little money to work with, and he's rightly being linked with other, bigger clubs. But while there was no shame in losing to Inter in the Coppa Italia final, he is likely to come under intense scrutiny for the way in which he handled a very winnable game against an average West Ham team, particularly in relation to his starting line-up and the puzzling decision to select Jovic up front.

That might seem harsh but such is the life of a modern-day manager.

Let's be honest, Declan Rice didn't have a very particularly good game at the Fortuna Arena. His performance did little to silence those that don't believe that the England international is anything close to being one of the best midfielders in the world. He was outclassed by Sofyan Amrabat for the most part. But that won't stop a Premier League club paying a ridiculous amount of money for his services this summer.

And that's why this trophy triumph is so significant for Rice. He can now bow out on a high, and most likely with the blessing of West Ham fans. His loyalty has been questioned before, of course, most recently by fans of his former national team, Republic of Ireland, but what more can he do for his current club? He's just followed in the footsteps of Billy Bonds and Bobby More by lifting a trophy for West Ham!

For all his faults, he deserves the chance to go and prove himself at a higher level.

Less than a week after a small group of Roma fans disgraced themselves by verbally abusing referee Anthony Taylor in front of his family as they tried to board a flight out of Budapest, some of their Fiorentina counterparts brought shame on another Serie A club. According to the latest reports coming out of Prague, police arrested 16 people for attacking West Ham fans outside a local bar.

There was a time in Italy that hooliganism was considered an 'English disease', but it's long since spread all across the world and, in Italy, the symptoms include not only violence but sickening incidents of racist and territorial abuse. Indeed, there's a reason why so few families are found at Serie A matches these days and it's got nothing to do with English football fans.

Not that the West Ham faithful were going to be outdone on this auspicious occasion, of course. The game was marred by a horrific incident shortly before half-time when Fiorentina captain Biraghi was left with blood streaming down the back of his head after being struck by one of umpteen plastic pint cups thrown from the West Ham end.

In all honesty, the game should have been called off there and then, just as it was after AC Milan goalkeeper Dida was struck by flare during the Champions League quarter-final clash with Inter at San Siro in 2005. Instead, the final was eventually allowed to continue after Biraghi had been bandaged up, with the defender having been fortunate to have avoided an even worse injury.

But how long before a player, a coach, a fan or a police officer is seriously hurt? Given the level of violence we are once again seeing on a regular basis all across Europe - think of the damage done by Feyenoord and Eintracht Frankfurt supporters in separate incidents in Italy in recent years - it feels like only a matter of time before we once again find ourselves in the awful situation that there's no guarantee that loved ones will return home from a game of football.