FA Cup
United and City legends, Sir Alex Ferguson and Mike Summerbee to take match ball to field at FA Cu final
The Football Association has confirmed details of the pre-match and half-time entertainment at Wembley on Saturday.
The Football Association has confirmed that the match ball for Saturday’s all-Manchester FA Cup final at Wembley will be walked out by former United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and City legend Mike Summerbee.
The two Manchester giants will go head-to-head in the first-ever all-Manchester final on Saturday afternoon, each looking to taste success in the final game of the domestic season.
United will have ambitions of winning their second trophy of the season while City will be hoping to keep their hopes of clinching a famous treble alive.
City have already scooped the Premier League title, beating Arsenal to the gong last month, and face Inter Milan in the Champions League final in Istanbul just seven days after facing United. The Reds, meanwhile, won the Carabao Cup in February to end their six-year trophy drought.Ferguson and Summerbee’s involvement in the pre-match pageantry will be just a small part of what will happen ahead of the 3pm kick-off, with His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, who is the President of the FA, leading the pre-match presentation. He will be joined by the national governing body’s Chair, Debbie Hewitt MBE, among others.
Ahead of the pre-match presentation, the pre-match show will consist of performances from Massed Bands of the Royal Corps of Army Music and the BBC Radio 1 DJ, producer, and host of Radio 1’s Soundsystem Party and 1Xtra’s Rave Show, Jeremiah Asiamah. The FA Cup final’s traditional pre-match hymn – Abide with Me – will also be played.
The military band, who will perform Abide with Me, will also contribute towards Asiamah’s bespoke DJ set that will feature City’s and United’s respective club anthems of Blue Moon and This is the One. Just before kick-off, the national anthem will be performed by the international soloist soprano Jasmine Faulkner, and a British Sign Language interpreter will provide translations of this and other moments during the afternoon.
At half-time, inspirational youngster Edward Simpson, who is attempting to raise £100,000 for brain tumour research following his own diagnosis, will take a penalty as part of his plan to take 100 penalty kicks in 100 different locations. Edward, who is also an avid United supporter, will take his Wembley penalty against United mascot Fred the Red.
Following the full-time whistle, in addition to the trophy being presented to the winner by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, the tournament’s top scorer will be presented with the Golden Ball Award in partnership with Mitre. Wrexham striker Paul Mullin is currently the leading marksman in the FA Cup this season, bagging eight goals.
City ace Riyad Mahrez is his nearest challenger, so far scoring five goals in the competition this term, meaning he would need to repeat the hat-trick he scored against Sheffield United at the semi-final stage to match the former Cambridge United ace’s tally.
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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