Palace's Historic Victory Leaves Passing Football Behind
F.A. Cup Final 2025
CRYSTAL PALACE 1:0 MANCHESTER CITY
Well done Crystal Palace. The Eagles finally soared at Wembley.
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| Crystal Palace win the 2025 F.A. Cup |
It is always healthy for football when the underdog wins. The Eagles had never won a major trophy before and were major minnows going into the final. Now the fans of such an unassuming inner suburb of London where no tourists visit will get their neighbourhood recognised abroad, can relish a first ever European odyssey next season and above all be able to say I was there on the 17th May 2025.
It must be wonderful to be Palace supporter right now. I felt touched when I saw a cheering Mark Bright, who gave me and Soccerphile his time in 2019 to talk about his life. I also spent many hours listening to Steve Coppell's press conferences at Reading as he tried and failed to repeat his Palace success at another club. He looked redeemed at Wembley today as did a pair of former England managers, Roy Hodgson and Gareth Southgate, as decent men as you could ever hope to encounter.
Palace upset the odds all right. Transfermarkt had rated their squad value as £371 million to Manchester City's £1.1 billion beforehand. City had the elite manager, firepower on the field and depth on the bench. The bookies had no doubt a blue moon would rise.
The after-match stats told the same story: City had 78% of the ball, 78% of passes, 83% of accurate ones, 77% of shots (23) and 75% of shots on target (six). They also took 83% of shots from outside the box (five) and won 88% of corners awarded (seven). But Palace scored 100% of the goals.
The numbers game that has made football such a science in recent seasons means nothing if you do not put the ball in the net more than the other guys.
So what happened? Put simply, Palace parked the bus and scored once on the break. They had another counter-attacking strike disallowed for offside and might have benefited from their goalkeeper Dean Henderson handling what looked like a notch outside the box in the first half, but there really were no complaints that the better team won.
The Londoner's massed ranks never broke their shield-wall but they had three outstanding players - Henderson between the sticks played a blinder which must have caught the eye of England boss Thomas Tuchel, Colombian defender Daniel Munoz looked dangerous every time he raced up the right wing and England attacker Eberechi Eze had the high-tech touch to finish off Munoz's piercing assist.
The bigger picture was the battle of styles, a contrast evident from the early engagements. Palace massed in their last third catenaccio-style while the light blue shirts buzzed around them unable to sting. It was a triumph of rapier strikes over a sustained barrage, a light and mobile Royal Navy overcoming a heavier armed but more cumbersome Spanish Armada lacking new ideas.
But where does that leave the increasingly sulky Pep Guardiola, who a few games ago mused whether his Barcelona playing style was becoming obsolete? When faced with lines of opponents sitting deep, you normally need to vary the pace of attack and surprise the sitting defenders. At the Camp Nou, he did that via many a Lionel Messi chip over the opposing defence and a Luis Suarez explosion of pace.
Those players are now in their twilight years playing in MLS but this afternoon Guardiola did have the best rampaging No.9 in the shape of Erling Haaland and in Jeremy Doku, a left-winger able to spring past markers with a shimmying burst a la Stanley Matthews. Then he had Omar Marmoush and Savinho to complete an awesome attacking quadrant, with Kevin de Bruyne and Bernardo Silva orchestrating behind them. That was surely more than enough to unlock the Palace.
But for so much of the match City seemed camped around the Eagles' box unable to get a shot off or penetrate the red and blue layers of lasagne ahead of them. They used width but too many crosses flew too high or long or when they did get the ball near the six-yard box there was always a Palace leg to hack it quickly away.
Where possession football and Guardiola's philosophy go from here is hard to say. Perhaps moderate clubs like Crystal Palace have just learnt how to frustrate the best passing teams.
Meanwhile, the Eagles are soaring over London.
(c) Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile