Chelsea 0-1 Manchester City (Semenyo, 72′)
WEMBLEY – The FA Cup has lost much of its grandeur in its ripe old age. A global audience focused on the glitz and glamour of the Champions League has seen this famous competition fade from view over time.
Pep Guardiola is one of the few who has never fallen out of love. Often he can be found eulogising about traveling to lower league grounds, where the dugouts are small and the changing rooms ill-equipped. This isn’t for show; the passion oozes out of him whenever he gets chance to declare his undying love for the FA Cup.
It helps that his record in the competition defies all logic. Antoine Semenyo’s sublime winner for Manchester City at Wembley on Saturday secured Guardiola his third FA Cup crown title, in his fourth successive final.
Consistency is the true mark of greatness. Six Premier League titles in a decade is quite something. 22 wins in his last 24 FA Cup matches, those two defeats in the previous two finals, is something else. On his 24th appearance at Wembley since arriving on our shores – Jurgen Klopp has the next most Wembley trips with six in that time – Guardiola did what only he can.
His FA Cup record, to keep coming back again and again, with the same hunger and desire is further proof that, in the pantheon of greats, nobody else is his equal.
On a day of protest – far-right nationalists in central London and Chelsea supporters down Wembley Way irked by the club’s owners – there was very little to help lift the mood in a tepid first half of little goalmouth action.
Guardiola and finals against Chelsea do mess with the madcap Catalan’s psychology. Against the Blues in the 2021 Champions League final, the City boss had some pre-match premonition that he was best not to deploy a holding midfielder, despite doing so every other game before or since.
The result was a tepid City being brushed aside in Porto. A less seismic decision to omit Rayan Cherki in favour of an out-of-practice Omar Marmoush at Wembley on Saturday was the root cause of his side’s ineptitude in the opening period.
Guardiola, in his roll neck, looking like an awkward father-in-law stood next to a tracksuited and boisterous Calum McFarlane on the touchline, paced around his technical area, wondering why he had omitted his most creative link.
Marmoush was hauled off at the break, but the damage to City’s momentum had already been done. The start of the second half was all Chelsea. You just knew City would have another gear. They always do. Guardiola can conjure anything, from anything.
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For all their pressure, Chelsea created very few openings of note. A penalty shout here. A half chance there. A tight final was always going to be settled by a mistake or one moment of unadulterated brilliance. And you just knew the best chance of the latter was down the other end.
Semenyo had done very little all game. For a few games in fact. The very best only need to show up for a millisecond to have the biggest influence, however. The cross into him from Erling Haaland was slightly behind him, but it helped create an angle to disguise the most sublime flick around the back of his marker and into the far corner.
Chelsea came again, but at no point did you feel the end result would be anything different. Guardiola doesn’t lose these games, on this ground, from here.
If this is the end, his exit at the end of the season will almost certainly be tinged with disappointment, as Arsenal look set to just get over the line in the title race.
Two further trophies, taking Guardiola to 17 in 10 years, 20 if you include the Community Shield, should not be taken lightly, as the Catalan’s accomplishments often are. He has normalised winning tough competitions. But there is nothing normal about Pep Guardiola and what he has achieved here.
The way he celebrated this triumph on the pitch in North-West London suggests there may be more to come.
