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DOWNING WANTS CUP TO CAP DREAM WEEK
By Damian Spellman of Betting Zone
Middlesbrough winger Stewart Downing will look to cap the biggest week of his life by helping to bring the UEFA Cup back to his home town on Wednesday night.
The 21-year-old midfielder was one of the surprise inclusions in Sven-Goran Eriksson's England World Cup squad yesterday, and victory over Sevilla in Eindhoven would cap a remarkable few days for him.
Local boy Downing is perhaps the star graduate of Boro's blossoming Academy, but like his club, has endured mixed fortunes this season.
A knee ligament injury sidelined him for much of the first half of the campaign, and his form has returned just when manager Steve McClaren needs it most after a gruelling fightback to full fitness.
The Teessiders have missed him as they have struggled in the Barclays Premiership, but European glory would more than make up for that.
"Earlier in the season the way things were going, you would have taken Premiership safety, a good run in the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup as far possible," Downing said.
"But yet again, it's been proved that football's a funny old game. If we win, it will be classed as a great season.
"To win the trophy on Wednesday would be a massive achievement for the club.
"We got to the quarter-finals last season and we would have probably taken that again, although getting into the Champions League spot is a long-term ambition.
"We might need that change to go on to the next level - you never know."
Born and bred in Middlesbrough, Downing knows exactly what victory over Sevilla would mean to the club and the town.
It is only two years since Boro lifted their first ever major trophy, the Carling Cup, and the buzz their spectacular run has created on Teesside was self-evident as an exodus of 9,200 fans with tickets and more without gathered pace this morning.
"It's absolutely brilliant that we have reached the final of a European competition - it's like a dream come true for me," Downing said.
"Twice I thought we'd lost it, but we proved people wrong with those astonishing comebacks and the way we have played, I think we should go on and win.
"It would be devastating if we got to the final and lost."
The logic-defying recoveries against Basle and Steaua Bucharest in the last two rounds have left Boro with a sense of invincibility, although they will have to be just as resilient if they are to triumph at the PSV Stadium.
"In every round, people have expected us to get knocked out - Stuttgart, Roma, Basel and then Steaua - because people have thought they were out of our league," said Downing.
"But we have proved people wrong. We seem to have been a cup team this season if you look at the league.
"We have managed to produce some incredible performances in the UEFA Cup this season, and hopefully we can re-produce that form in Eindhoven."
Downing is not the only member of the Boro staff to have had an eventful week - McClaren is still coming to terms with being named the new England boss.
However, the man who will join his in Germany in a few weeks' time insists none of that has got in the way of their preparations.
"The lads have just got on with it despite the announcement that the gaffer would be leaving," Downing said. "Good luck to him, he's done well and deserves it.
"But we can't afford to think of anything else than the final, the biggest game in the club's history.
"We have got to go and win it and send him off in the best possible way."
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