Paqueta an instant hero for fans and a player to build a midfield around

IT IS quite the stretch to claim a lad born on the tiny Paqueta Island in Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay as one of east London’s own.

But as this ultimately historic season has worn on, that is the level of affection with which West Ham supporters have come to view the eponymous son of a land mass not even half-asquare-mile in size, an auto-free zone where the only modes of transport are pedal bikes and horse-drawn carriages.

Note the wonderful irony in the most popular Hammers banner on display at the Eden Arena in Prague this week, which, riffing off the catchy television advert, declared ‘Just sold my car, to Lucas Paqueta’. Back home, he would not have much use for it.

There again, after his moment of magic on Wednesday night, there would be plenty of Hammers fans quite happy to hand their entire estates over to Paqueta for nothing, his sensational pass sending Jarrod Bowen through in the 90th minute to score perhaps the club’s most celebrated goal in 43 years.