By Nicholas Veevers at Wembley
Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool
The FA Cup with Budweiser
The Final
5.15pm, Saturday 5 May 2012
Wembley Stadium
Live on ITV1 and ESPN
Winning club receives £1.8m and runners-up £950,000 from The FA's prize fund
Chelsea captain John Terry hailed his team after they won The FA Cup yet again and insisted they have once again proved their critics wrong.
"This is what we play football for," said Terry after beating Liverpool 2-1 at Wembley. "There's tough competition in The FA Cup but we're here today, we've won and it was a great performance.
"People say we're too old, we're past it, we're not together as a team. But when the chips are down we come together, we unite. And we've done that superbly in the last 16 or 17 games."
Chelsea now aim to make it a 'double' by beating Bayern Munich in the Champion League Final.
Terry added: "We've still got one more massive trophy to go for now; that's what our target has been since the day dot when the owner came in."
He refused to discuss whether interim manager Roberto Di Matteo should now be handed the job on a full-time basis but claimed: "We've done Robbie the world of good today, we've put in a great performance for him and it can do him no harm."
Goalkeeper Petr Cech also played a crucial part in Chelsea's win, making a miraculous late save to deny Andy Carroll a certain equaliser; even though the Liverpool man claimed his effort went over the line.
Cech said: "I don't think it was over the line. Not at all. If the ball was behind the line I couldn't have it outside. I bent my arms to get it out and I'm sure I was behind the line. I'm 100 per cent it was not in and I knew it from the first moment. I think they got it right.
"It's fantastic what we have achieved winning The FA Cup again. It's a great atmosphere and I really enjoyed it."
Chelsea: 1 Petr Cech, 2 Branislav Ivanovic, 3 Ashley Cole, 7 Ramires (16 Raul Meireles, 77), 8 Frank Lampard, 10 Juan Mata (15 Florent Malouda, 90), 11 Didier Drogba, 12 John Obi Mikel, 17 Jose Bosingwa, 21 Salomon Kalou, 26 John Terry (c ).
Substitutes not used: 22 Ross Turnbull, 5 Michael Essien, 9 Fernando Torres, 19 Paulo Ferreira, 23 Daniel Sturridge.
Manager: Roberto Di Matteo
Liverpool: 25 Pepe Reina, 2 Glen Johnson, 3 Jose Enrique, 5 Daniel Agger, 7 Luis Suarez, 8 Steven Gerrard (c), 14 Jordan Henderson, 19 Stewart Downing, 20 Jay Spearing (9 Andy Carroll, 55), 37 Martin Skrtel, 39 Craig Bellamy (18 Dirk Kuyt, 79).
Substitutes not used: 11 Maxi Rodriguez, 23 Jamie Carragher, 32 Alexander Doni, 33 Jonjo Shelvey, 34 Martin Kelly.
Manager: Kenny Dalglish
Referee: Phil Dowd
Assistant Referees: Stuart Burt & Andrew Garratt.
Fourth Official: Michael Jones
Attendance: 89,102
0 comments:
Post a Comment