The last season in the city of Manchester was history. On the positive side, painted in light blue, City became the first in the history of the Premier League to win the championship four times in a row, Rodri continued not to lose, Erling Holland finished as the top scorer and Phil Foden as the player of the season. On the negative side, painted in red, United finished in their lowest place in Premier League history, a negative record in concedings, a negative record in losses and a lot of injuries. Eric ten Haag, the coach who arrived with great fanfare from Ajax in April 2022, is expected to leave the team no matter how this season ends.
So today (Saturday), she ended up with history. Manchester United won the FA Cup thanks to a 1:2 win over Manchester City and took revenge for last year. As then, United were the better team on the pitch, but this time they managed to take advantage of it to finish with perhaps the result they deserved in the previous final at Wembley.
In front of me, Alex Ferguson in the stands, who rose to prominence thanks to “Fergie’s Babies”, saw “Ten Haah’s Babies” take a first degree in the senior group. Alejandro Granacho and Kobe Mayno, two 19-year-olds who grew up in the club’s youth department and won the FA Youth Cup two years ago, started the lineup and brought the 13th trophy in the history of the Red Devils, this time in the uniform of the senior team. Along the way, they became the first duo in their teens to win the FA Cup final.
Throughout the game, Guardiola’s defense did not function. Many bad clearances and the lack of dealing with the pressure applied by United in the front part led to turnovers in the box area, and one of them even to a goal. Yoshko Gabardiol, who was in great shape in the Premier League and became the most expensive stopper in history last summer, made a serious mistake in coordination with Stefan Ortega and Granacio took advantage of it to easily roll the ball into the open net (30). Nine minutes later, United’s passing attack led to a numerical advantage in attack and Bruno Fernandes sent a crooked eye to Maino who beat Ortega.
City may have woken up in the second half thanks to the substitutions and once found the crossbar, unable to deal with the condensed defense of the Red Devils. Andre Unana, who played a good game, made only one mistake and was unable to properly block Jeremy Duko’s kick, which entered the net in the 87th minute. In doing so, two great streaks came to an end: Rodri lost for the first time in 74 games in 90 minutes in a game he participated in, and Guardiola lost a cup final in England for the first time with City (6/7). Following the result, Newcastle will not participate in a European event in the coming season and the one who will play in the Conference League is Chelsea, who finished sixth.
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