FA Cup
Facts and stats ahead of the Emirates FA Cup final between Chelsea and Liverpool
The 2022 Emirates FA Cup Final between Chelsea and Liverpool will kick-off at 4.45pm on Saturday at Wembley Stadium.
In a repeat of the 2012 Final, ironically the last time Liverpool reached this stage, both teams will be looking to etch their name on the famous trophy in what is the 150th anniversary year of the world’s original knockout competition.
And ahead of the game, our colleagues at Opta have put together some stats and facts to digest ahead of the Final.
● For only the second time, the same two sides (Chelsea and Liverpool) will contest both the League Cup and FA Cup final in the same campaign. The previous occasion was 1992-93, when Arsenal beat Sheffield Wednesday in both finals.
● With this match a repeat of the 2021-22 League Cup final, Liverpool will look to win both of England’s domestic cup competitions in the same season for the first time since 2000-01, whilst the last team to lose both the League and FA Cup final in the same campaign were Middlesbrough in 1996-97.
● This will be the fourth meeting of the season between Liverpool and Chelsea, with the other three matches all ending level, despite the Reds lifting the League Cup trophy via penalties in February. The last fixture between two English top-flight sides to see more draws in the same campaign was Arsenal v Chelsea in 2017-18 (4).
● Liverpool and Chelsea have met once before in the FA Cup Final, doing so in 2012 which the Blues won 2-1 thanks to goals from Ramires and Didier Drogba. This will be the Blues’ 16th appearance in the competition’s final compared to the Reds’ 15th, the third and fourth most occasions of all sides behind Manchester United (20) and Arsenal (21).
● Chelsea are the first side to qualify for three consecutive FA Cup Finals since Arsenal between 2000-01 and 2002-03. However, after losing in both 2019-20 (v Arsenal) and 2020-21 (v Leicester), they are looking to avoid becoming the first side since Newcastle in 1998-99 to lose three final appearances in a row in the competition (also losing in 1973-74 & 1997-98).
● Liverpool have lifted the trophy in exactly 50 per cent of their 14 previous FA Cup Final appearances (seven), the joint-third lowest success ratio of the nine sides to have reached the Final at least ten times, ahead of only Everton (5/13 – 38%) and Newcastle (6/13 – 46%).
● The last two winners of the FA Cup, Arsenal (2019-20) and Leicester (2020-21) have ended up finishing
lower than their opponents (Chelsea) in both seasons. The lower ranked team at the end of the season hasn’t won the FA Cup in three consecutive years since 1976 to 1978 – Southampton (v Man Utd), Manchester United (v Liverpool) and Ipswich Town (v Arsenal).
This match will be both Chelsea and Liverpool’s 41st match at Wembley Stadium as a neutral venue, leaving just Arsenal (42) and Manchester United (52) with more such appearances there. The Blues (55%) are one of just two sides to have played there as neutrals more than ten times with a winning ratio of more than 50% (22/40), alongside Nottingham Forest (7/11 – 64%).
● In Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp and Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel, the FA Cup Final will see two German managers go head-to-head for the very first time, with the one emerging victorious the first German boss to get their hands on the trophy.
● Having been in charge of Chelsea for just one year and 108 days (on the day of this game), Thomas Tuchel is set to take charge of his fourth major domestic/European final at the club (2x FA Cup, League Cup and Champions League), with no manager taking charge of more in the club’s history (José Mourinho also four).
● Jurgen Klopp is set to become just the second Liverpool manager to take charge of the club in the final of four major domestic/European competitions (League Cup, Europa League, Champions League and FA Cup), after Bob Paisley (League Cup, FA Cup, UEFA Cup, European Cup).
● The 2021-22 FA Cup Final will be the 19th managerial meeting in all competitions between Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp and Chelsea’s Thomas Tuchel, meaning Klopp will have faced only Dieter Hecking (21) and Pep Guardiola (24) more often as a manager. In the two knockout ties between the men, Klopp has defeated Tuchel on both occasions – the 2015-16 Europa League quarter-final and the 2021-22 League Cup final.
● Sadio Mane has scored six goals against Chelsea since moving to Liverpool in 2016-17, with no other player netting more often vs the Blues in this time. Following the Senegalese’s brace in the semi-final v Man City, he is looking to become the first Liverpool player to score in consecutive Wembley appearances (when used as a neutral venue) since Phillipe Coutinho in April 2015 & February 2016.
● No player has had a direct hand in more FA Cup goals this season than Chelsea’s Timo Werner (two goals, three assists), which is also the outright most of any player for the two sides in the final. The last players to contribute directly to more Chelsea goals in the same campaign in the competition were both Pedro (six) and Willian (seven) in 2016-17, though they did end up on the losing side to Arsenal in the Final at Wembley that season.
● Since his first season within the Chelsea first team ahead of the 2019-20 campaign, no player has made more club appearances at Wembley Stadium than Mason Mount (six), who has now scored twice there – in the semi-final v Crystal Palace last month and against Man Utd in July 2020 in another FA Cup semi-final. However, Mount is yet to get his hands on a trophy following a Wembley final, losing the 2020 and 2021 FA Cup finals, and the 2022 League Cup final.
-OPTA
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola admitted he was surprised that Norwegian striker Erling Haaland declined to take a penalty for his side in Saturday’s FA Cup final against Crystal Palace with the kick subsequently being missed by Omar Marmoush.
Trailing 1-0 to Eberechi Eze’s goal, City were awarded a penalty in the first half when Palace defender Tyrick Mitchell tripped Bernardo Silva who had burst into the area.
Haaland, who had failed to score in his first five Wembley appearances for City, looked poised to break that duck, but handed the ball to Marmoush whose first-ever penalty for City was superbly saved by Dean Henderson.
“I thought he would want to take it but they didn’t speak,” said Guardiola. “That moment for the penalty, it’s the feeling and how they feel. They decided Omar was ready to take it.
“Omar took a lot of time when the ball was stopped, so it put more pressure on him, and Henderson made a good save.”
Former Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney, working as a TV pundit for the BBC, said he felt the occasion might have got to Haaland.
“He’s a world-class forward, but when we are talking about Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, there is no way they are giving that ball away,” Rooney said.
“That is what separates them two players from Erling Haaland or Kylian Mbappe and these players. They are selfish and they want to score every game.
“When (Haaland) misses chances I think you can see it gets to him and it does affect him. Maybe the thought of taking a penalty at Wembley might have been too much for him. You never know, he is a human being.”
Haaland has scored 30 goals for City this season in all competitions but has missed three of his seven penalties.
-Reuters
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Crystal Palace face Manchester City at Wembley on Saturday hoping to lift the FA Cup for the first time and it is guaranteed that high on the pre-match agenda will be the club’s extraordinary and eventually heartbreaking 1990 campaign.
The semi-finals and final(s) that year were arguably the most dramatic in the competition’s long and storied history and remain the emotional high and low point of every Palace fan who watched them.
Palace were struggling in the top flight after promotion and had been humiliated 9-0 by Liverpool early in the season.
In the Cup they were hardly pulling up trees either, beating lower league Portsmouth, Huddersfield Town, Rochdale and Cambridge United to reach the semi-finals for the first time since they lost to Southampton as a third division team in 1976.
Facing runaway champions-elect and FA Cup holders Liverpool again in the semis look an insurmountable barrier and an Ian Rush goal had the Reds ahead at halftime at Villa Park.
Things then went crazy as Mark Bright and Gary O’Reilly gave Palace a shock lead. Two goals in two minutes put Liverpool back in front, only for Andy Gray to stun the odds-on favourites in the 88th minute to force extra time.
Amazingly, it was Palace who snatched victory in the 109th minute via Alan Pardew, who would later manage the club.
It was the first year that both semi-finals were live on TV and barely had the excitement abated when similarly unfancied Oldham ran out to face Manchester United at Maine Road.
The second division team had not beaten top-flight opposition in 66 years but accounted for four that season in a double cup run that caught the nation’s imagination.
Playing vibrant, attacking football under Joe Royle, Oldham twice came from behind to draw 3-3 after extra time – meaning a remarkable 13 goals had been scored on a day of unimaginable drama. United ended Oldham’s dream when they snatched a 2-1 victory six minutes from the end of extra time in the replay.
ALL-ENGLISH TEAM
The Palace side who lined up at Wembley were the last all-English team to play in the final while United’s were the last all-UK lineup to win it.
United manager Alex Ferguson was under huge pressure to deliver a trophy four years after arriving at Old Trafford, but Palace struck first through O’Reilly.
Bryan Robson and Mark Hughes turned it round and United seemed on course for victory, only for Ian Wright to come off the bench for the most wonderful 20 minutes of his life.
The former non-league striker had been sidelined for much of the season with a twice-broken leg, but exploded into action to equalise with virtually his first touch and then put the Londoners ahead early in extra time.
“It’s still the greatest moment I’ve had in my career – easily – simply because of everything that it had entailed up to that point,” Wright told the Palace website on Friday.
“My emergence at Palace, and to reach the biggest stage in English football, and all of a sudden I’m on the Wembley pitch.
“And then what happened after that was the stuff of fairytales. It really, really was.”
However, as the Palace fans sang in dreamland, Hughes broke their hearts with a late equaliser.
The replay five days later could not live up to everything that had gone before and though Palace battled gamely, United won it 1-0 with a goal by Lee Martin.
It was a victory that launched Ferguson and United on their dizzying journey of success – that included another extra-time FA Cup final win over Palace in 2016 after the Scot had retired – but one that left a gaping hole in the hearts of the losers.
“I would have loved to have won that FA Cup, and we were only seven minutes away,” said Wright, who went on to win multiple trophies, including two FA Cups with Arsenal. “Seven minutes. Honestly, I still can’t take it.”
-Reuters
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The first weekend of semi-automated offside decisions in English soccer descended into confusion on Saturday as Bournemouth had a goal ruled out after a record eight-minute VAR check.
Bournemouth, who eventually beat Premier League rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers on penalties in the FA Cup fifth round after a 1-1 draw, thought they had doubled their lead when defender Milos Kerkez scored in the 35th-minute goal.
However, new technology could not be used because the six-yard area was too crowded and VAR officials had to revert to manually drawing lines before disallowing the goal.
Fellow defender Dean Huijsen was adjudged to have been in an offside position as Kerkez’s effort brushed his shoulder before going in to the net.
The VAR check was further complicated as VAR officials Timothy Wood and Darren England also had to also examine the possibility of hand balls prior to the tight offside call.
Both sets of fans voiced their disapproval at the interminable wait, chanting “it’s not football any more” and “this is embarrassing”.
Referee Sam Barrott, who eventually announced the decision to the crowd via a microphone, had to explain to the respective managers and players what was happening during the delay.
-Reuters
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