Manchester United Women claimed their first major trophy since their inception in 2018 with a 4-0 thrashing of Tottenham in the Women’s FA Cup final at Wembley on sunday.
The atmosphere was buzzing on a sunny day at Wembley Stadium with 76,082 fans in attendance along with United’s co-owner Avram Glazer and Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy.
In the first final without one of Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City for the first time after almost two decades, United and Spurs both had the chance to win the tournament for the first time in their history. It was United who rose to the occasion, controlling the first half and finally scoring in stoppage-time thanks to Ella Toone’s brilliant strike.
Match highlights and goals
The goals came from Ella Toone, Rachel Williams, and Lucia Garcia who scored a brace. United head coach Marc Skinner’s side had the better of the chances throughout the match. But they only broke the deadlock in first-half stoppage time when midfielder Toone unleashed a powerful strike from outside the area into the top corner.
Spurs, playing in their first FA Cup final in what is Swedish coach Robert Vilahamn’s debut campaign, drew 2-2 with United in the Women’s Super League last month but struggled to create any attacking threat, not registering a single shot on target, and capitulated after the break.
United’s Williams, who previously played for Spurs and won the FA Cup with Birmingham City 12 years ago, climbed high to head in a free kick before Garcia pounced on a poor pass in the box from goalkeeper Becky Spencer to make it 3-0 in the 57th minute. Garcia added another via a deflection in the 74th as United salvaged a season in which they have struggled, sitting fifth in the league standings after being title challengers last year.
Player of the match
Lucia Garcia took the trophy of the player of the match after scoring twice for her team.
After match, the reactions are..
“We don’t like to admit it but it does mask over the issues we’ve had,” goalscorer Williams, 36, told the BBC. “We have had some ups and downs this year. That’s for Marc (Skinner) and the backroom staff to be like ‘right, this is what we have to do in the summer.”
“We are going to have change things next year. We have had some injuries, three or four ACLs, at the start of the season.”
“That’s football, teams go through transition. You have a good year, you have a dip. Next year we might just come back bigger, better and stronger and, who knows, we might just be lifting the league.”
United’s game last year
United fell short last year against Chelsea but continued their impressive record against Spurs here, extending to 13 games unbeaten against Tottenham since being founded in 2018.
This defeat will remain painful for Spurs in their first FA Cup final appearance, also ending a seven-game undefeated streak since losing to rivals Arsenal at the start of March.
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