| London Arsenal won the FA Cup This was the last tour of the best English clubs to the capital of Wales - Cardiff. The beautiful Millennium Stadium has been home to the finalists of every cup final held in the home of football for five years. But now the forced exile has come to an end, and from next season a new, even more impressive 90,000-ton building, whose name is Wembley, will open its doors again. Arsenal have been the most successful in Wales, winning here three times, including Saturday's victory over Manchester United on penalties.
Passions were burning in earnest on the eve of the final of the oldest tournament on the planet. Moreover, they were connected not so much with football, but with the events taking place around it. The news of the purchase of the most profitable club in the world - Manchester United - by the American Malcolm Glazer, which appeared on the front pages of newspapers, brought the fans of the Mancunian club into mourning and became a real holiday for everyone else. Both are well aware that the transfer of the Red Devils to a debt-ridden businessman who intends to pay off debts at the expense of the club's profits actually means the beginning of the end for United. Manchester United fans, whose endless strikes never led to anything, arrived in the Welsh capital, dressed in black T-shirts and wearing armbands with the mournful inscription “Rest in peace, Manchester United!” They don’t believe in the team’s future and are even creating a new team, FC United, whose colors even Eric Cantona himself agreed to defend and raise from the amateur league.
The meeting, as expected, was preceded by a traditional verbal skirmish between the opposing head coaches, which in the British Isles received the quite succinct name “war of brains.” Gunners coach Arsene Wenger did not hide the fact that in the last match of the season he will have to do without his leader: “I’ll be honest, Thierry Henry will not be able to play. Ferguson, of course, won’t believe me and will prepare to confront my team with a Frenchman in the lineup. But it doesn’t bother me too much, I’m already used to it.” Sir Alex, in turn, spoke in his usual style: “I never believed Wenger and I don’t intend to do so in the future. I am confident that Henry, who played in Arsenal's last match, will take the field and that is what I am preparing my team for."
However, when the starting lineups became known and the thunderous goalkeepers were not even among the substitutes, Ferguson was not at all embarrassed: the Scot, looking somewhere into the distance, shook his French colleague’s hand as usual and hurried to take a place a few meters from Wenger, whom he hated so much. “Arsenal” was considered the favorite of the match - both bookmakers and numerous experts predicted the victory of the Londoners, who from the very morning shared their thoughts with the fans on British television. They could hardly have imagined that the meeting would take place with Manchester United having an overwhelming advantage.
The game was not at all like previous confrontations between famous clubs. There was a fair fight on the field with a minimum of rule violations. There was no sign of the carnage that Ferguson openly promised at Millennium. The Gunners, who had such a great final part of the championship, were unlike themselves. The defense, with the exception of the Swiss Philippe Senderos, who was progressing from match to match, looked extremely unreliable. “King of the midfield” Patrick Vieira, who never received much help from Gilberto Silva, completely lost the fight to his opponent Roy Keane, who played above all praise, just like in his best years. 18-year-old Francesc Fabregas, who became a real discovery of the season, also failed to prove himself. And the ball only reached Reyes and Bergkamp only on major holidays. Interestingly, the best among the representatives of the capital was the man who took more critical arrows in recent months than anyone else. The German goalkeeper of Arsenal, Jens Lehmann, sometimes single-handedly outplayed Ronaldo with Fletcher and Keane with Rooney, who, despite the lack of goals scored, showed truly high-quality football. Lehmann had no chance to help his team only once, when after a corner, Ruud van Nistelrooy hit the goal point-blank, but, fortunately for him, the ball was cleared from the tape by substitute Ljungberg.
During the main time of the match, the spectators did not see any goals scored, as well as in the additional thirty minutes. Everything was decided in a series of penalty kicks, in which Arsenal turned out to be more accurate - 5:4. The only penalty missed was Paul Scholes, whose shot was brilliantly parried by the same Lehmann. The Londoners won their tenth Cup in history and came very close to the defeated Manchester United, whose treasury of honorable trophies remains at eleven. Arthur PETROSIAN |
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