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Enough drama? How Man City, Brighton booked Women’s FA Cup final spotsEmily KeoghClose
Correspondent
Correspondent
The Women’s FA Cup final is booked! Manchester City and Brighton & Hove Albion will meet May 31 after wins in the semifinals against Chelsea and Liverpool, respectively.
It was a dramatic Sunday. First, Brighton struck in stoppage time against Liverpool to earn a thrilling 3-2 win, and they are now one win away from their first-ever major trophy.
If your pulse wasn’t racing already, then City’s 3-2 extra-time win over Chelsea would have done the job. Sonia Bompastor’s side was up 2-0 as the clock ticked past 85 minutes, but City struck twice — first through Mary Fowler and again in the 91st minute through Khadija Shaw — sending the game to extra time. Shaw struck again in the 103rd minute to seal the victory and a chance at a domestic double.
Jasper Wax/Getty ImagesThe player everyone has been talking about all week was on everyone’s lips once again. Days after sources told ESPN that Shaw was set to leave City after five years — potentially to join Chelsea — it was the Jamaica striker who made them FA Cup finalists.
Shaw’s 19 goals in the league led City to their historic first Women’s Super League title in a decade. Now, her importance cannot be understated, as she guided City to Wembley after a four-year absence from the FA Cup final.
For much of the afternoon, Shaw was struggling, with the emotions of this week — winning the league Wednesday and her impending exit from City hitting the headlines Thursday — likely compounding to cloud her typically clinical execution.
Yet her two goals exemplify the type of player she is. Amid all the off-pitch noise, she still found a way to be the difference.
It is a real statement to City of what life without Shaw could look like, and a sign to the clubs lining up to pen her signature that she still is the best striker in the world.
Sources have told ESPN that Chelsea are favorites to sign Shaw this summer, and the way they lost control of the game from two goals up shows just why the former domestic champions need her services. — Emily Keogh
Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside via Getty ImagesA lot can happen in five minutes. That was the time difference between Chelsea being up 2-0 and being pegged back to 2-2. Amid a lack of concentration, it all came crashing down.
It was by their own hand that Chelsea relinquished their ticket to the final, losing focus in the last 10 minutes and allowing a long-absent City to kick into gear and take full advantage.
City were hardly convincing for much of the afternoon. For 80 minutes, City overshot or badly placed every chance. That allowed Chelsea to dominate the afternoon, going up 2-0 with ease.
It could have been 4-0 had striker Sam Kerr not had two goals ruled out — one for offside and one for a contentious call that the ball had gone out of play in the buildup. It was the second decision, and its momentum swing, that hugely impacted the outcome.
Still, Chelsea lost control of the game, similar to how they crashed out of the Women’s Champions League quarterfinals against Arsenal and allowed the WSL title race to slip away from them.
Chelsea’s season essentially ended on a mistake from goalkeeper Hannah Hampton, who tried to pass the ball out from the back, only to find an empty space instead, allowing City midfielder Yui Hasegawa to pounce and set up Shaw’s winner.
“We had one game until the 85th minute,” Chelsea boss Bompastor mentioned. “We were in control. We had a good performance. We were leading the game at home 2-0. When you consider three goals at home, that’s not good enough from us.
“When we lose control of the game in the last 10 minutes; that’s not good enough from us. They are not the standards and the expectations in this club, and that’s the reason why [we lost].”
It was on Wednesday that City finally dethroned Chelsea in WSL, ending their six-year reign of dominance. It had been coming for some time, but the delayed coronation would not have brought Chelsea any more comfort.
This will go down as Chelsea’s worst season in recent history. Their worst season on paper is 2019, when they went trophyless. However, even though Bompastor’s side claimed the League Cup in March, the way in which the club lost the FA Cup, failed to compete in the WSL, and crashed out of the Women’s Champions League, this will go down as the worst season in its history. — Keogh
Kate McShane – The FA/The FA via Getty ImagesIf anyone needed a reminder of the enduring magic of the Women’s FA Cup, they only had to cast an eye over Brighton’s wild celebrations following their last-gasp victory over Liverpool.
As the substitutes stormed the pitch, the away end descended into ecstasy as it celebrated the team reaching the final of the competition for the first time. Nadine Noordam’s 95th-minute winner completed a remarkable comeback for the visitors, who had found themselves down 2-0 inside 22 minutes at St Helens Stadium.
Lesser teams would have surrendered in the face of such adversity, but Dario Vidosic’s side has shown it is made of sterner stuff during an unbeaten run that is now extended to seven games. Along with the win over Liverpool, Brighton have also toppled both Manchester City and Arsenal over the course of the past month and, with a purpose-built £80 million stadium on the horizon, the Seagulls are relishing their status as chief disruptors of the status quo in women’s soccer.
“Since I’ve come in, we’ve always spoken about wanting to write history,” Vidosic mentioned in his postmatch news conference. “We want to be historic as a team. Last season’s team were able to write their name history as being the best ever in terms of points tally; now this team is starting to write its own history, and now we’ve got two very important games where we could really put our names there forever.”
Certainly, if Brighton can maintain their impressive form until the end of the season, it will have been a campaign to remember. — Beth Lindop
From ecstasy to agony. While the Brighton players were celebrating their historic late win, many of the Liverpool players had their heads in their hands.
Football can be a cruel game and the Reds have witnessed that first-hand over the course of this bruising campaign, which has been complicated by a deluge of injuries and tragedy off the pitch. With that in mind, their run to the semi-finals is one to be proud of but the stoppage-time sucker-punch on Sunday afternoon offered a reminder that, in a sport of such fine margins, every detail matters.
“There are a lot of things that we need to improve on at this club, on and off the pitch,” head coach Gareth Taylor admitted after the game.
“I think there’s a lot of work to be done still. It doesn’t just happen on the pitch, there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes…we’ve got to strive to be better because you can just see in the WSL all the teams are making steps.
“Brighton are now coming into a really good moment in the season at the right time, Spurs are making a real push, London City are spending money. We just have to be really careful we don’t get dragged away from that. We need stay current and make sure we’re still supporting the team to the max.”
His message felt pointed. It’s worth remembering it’s only six years ago that Liverpool women were relegated to the second tier in the same season that the men’s team won the Premier League.
With the competitiveness of the WSL becoming more intense every season, the club’s owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) must show they have learned from their mistakes by investing in the squad this summer. — Lindo
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