Refreshed Fulham eye fairytale Euro final

Fulham star Zoltan Gera believes his side’s controversial weekend break could prove the decisive factor as they aim to continue their Europa League fairytale against Hamburg on Thursday.

Cottagers boss Roy Hodgson risked the wrath of the Premier League when he rested nine first-team players for Sunday’s 2-1 defeat at Everton to keep them fresh and injury-free ahead of the semi-final second leg at Craven Cottage.

West Ham complained to the Premier League when Hodgson made a similiar selection for a loss at Hull before his team’s quarter-final against Wolfsburg.

But Hungary midfielder Gera insists Hodgson’s decision will ensure the team, who drew 0-0 in Germany in the first leg, are perfectly prepared as they try to set up a final clash with Liverpool or Atletico Madrid.

“I would be lying if I said I didn’t like the rest as the past weeks have been very tough,” Gera said. “All the games have been very speedy and I needed to recover well during the weekend, especially after our long journeys.”

Despite having to make a 18-hour road trip to Hamburg after their flight was grounded by the volanic ash cloud over Europe, Hodgson’s team coped admirably with the draining journey and delivered a defensive masterclass in the Nordbank Arena.

They shut out Hamburg even though the hosts dominated possession for long periods, but Gera hopes their failure to score an away goal won’t prove costly as a score-draw in the return would mean the Germans go through to the final, which will be held at their own stadium.

“Our goalless draw is not the best omen because so far we have scored on all of our away games in Europe,” Gera said.

“Now after the goalless draw we have to win on home soil. If we don’t win then we just can go through with penalties. Of course I’d accept this if it meant that we could go into the final.”

That result was just the latest heroic effort by the Cottagers in a European campaign which began way back in late-July and has includes wins over holders Shakhtar Donetsk, Italian giants Juventus and German champions Wolfsburg.

Now Fulham, who have never won a major honour in England or reached a European final, are on the verge of the greatest achievement in the club’s 131-year history.

Fulham’s chances of an historic triumph will be significantly improved if 19-goal leading scorer Bobby Zamora recovers from an Achilles problem in time to feature.

Zamora’s performances in Europe this season have rightly earned rave reviews and even sparked talk of a surprise call-up to England’s World Cup squad.

But he limped off in Germany last week after sustaining the injury and missed the Everton match as a result.

“He’s having treatment and I’m hoping he’ll be ready for Thursday, but I’m not confident,” Hodgson said.

Hamburg sacked manager Bruno Labbadia in the aftermath of last weekend’s 5-1 loss at Hoffenheim, with assistant coach Ricardo Moniz – a former member of Tottenham?s backroom staff under ex-boss Martin Jol – taking charge to the end of the season.

Labbadia has been under pressure for several weeks as players complained about his stern style of management and he paid the price for such a heavy league defeat just days after his team’s lacklustre effort against Fulham.

Hamburg had won just four of their last 15 matches and chairman Bernd Hoffmann said: “We analysed the situation and we saw that as things were, we would not be able to succeed against Fulham.

There was no alternative to this. We need to improve the probability of us being successful on Thursday.

“It was the last moment for us to react to keep our Europa League target in sight.”