Let the ball go through your legs. Swing your right boot backward. Score in a cup final.
That’s what Antoine Semenyo did in the 72nd minute at Wembley on Saturday. Manchester City won the fa cup 1-0, Chelsea walked away empty-handed again, and the only thing anyone’s going to talk about from this game is a finish that makes you rewind the clip three times trying to understand what you just watched.
If you want City’s next fixtures, Chelsea’s summer situation, or the Premier League implications from this result, everything’s trackable through dbbet. The short version of the match itself: one goal, one extraordinary goal, and a game that was deeply functional for most of its runtime before that moment changed it entirely.
How Chelsea held City for an hour
Calum McFarlane — interim manager, probably not the long-term answer, but clearly not a disaster either — set chelsea fc up in a back five with the specific intention of making the game horrible. No space in behind. Crowd the midfield. Make City work for every touch in the final third.
It worked. Genuinely worked. For forty-five minutes City had the ball and almost nothing to show for it. The only real chance of the half was Haaland from a tight angle after Marc Guéhi slipped a ball in behind — Robert Sánchez got down and saved it. That was the highlight. In an FA Cup final. That tells you how effectively Chelsea’s defensive organisation operated in the opening period.
Half time, 0-0. City had 63% possession and nothing to put beside it.
The plan was clear enough. Don’t lose the first half. Get to the break level and see whether City run out of ideas or find something. Chelsea executed that part almost perfectly.
72 minutes
Rayan Cherki came on at the start of the second half and nearly scored within two minutes. Didn’t, but his movement started opening Chelsea’s shape slightly. Semenyo — signed from Bournemouth in January, about £40 million, been building all season — had been the most active attacker on the pitch for City, attacking Marc Cucurella repeatedly on the right channel and winning more often than he lost.
The goal came from that exact pattern. Bernardo Silva found Haaland in a channel. Haaland looked up, saw Semenyo arriving at the near post with Levi Colwill pressed against him, and slid the ball across. Standard delivery. What happened next wasn’t standard.
Semenyo didn’t control it. Didn’t shoot first time. He let the ball run between his legs, hung his right boot behind him at a diagonal angle, and clipped it into the bottom corner across the dive of Sánchez. The ball barely changed direction but ended up somewhere completely different from where the keeper had committed.
Guardiola’s face. Honestly, Guardiola’s face when that went in looked like a man who hadn’t fully processed what he’d just seen from his own player.
Chelsea had an immediate response — Enzo Fernández flicked a Colwill knockdown that landed on the roof of the net, inches over. Then a sustained push: crosses, set pieces, shots from distance, the noise of a fanbase willing an equaliser into existence. None of it produced a meaningful save from Sánchez. City’s defensive shape, once protecting a lead, was too organised to be broken down by the quality Chelsea were generating in their pressure.
Full time, 1-0. Semenyo named player of the match without any real debate.
What City actually won and what comes next
This is Manchester City’s eighth FA Cup title. More immediately relevant: it’s their second domestic cup of the season — they beat Liverpool or whoever it was in the Carabao Cup final back in March — which means the domestic treble is alive if they can overhaul Arsenal in the Premier League. Two points behind with games remaining.
Guardiola told the press after the final that his players were going home. Not celebrating. Bournemouth away is Tuesday. “They go home,” he said, and that was that. Whatever personal milestone winning a possible final-season treble represents, he’s not letting the players feel it until the league is decided.
Semenyo’s story is worth isolating. He’s Ghanaian, came through the English football system, spent years at Bournemouth building the kind of form that got City’s attention. Bought in January. Five months later he scores one of the great fa cup final goals. The career trajectory of that is genuinely fun to track.
Chelsea’s position, honestly
Four FA Cup final defeats since 2018. That’s when chelsea fc last won this competition — beating Manchester United 1-0 with Eden Hazard, a different era of the club. Since then: 2020 loss to Arsenal, 2021 loss to Leicester, 2022 loss to Liverpool, and now 2026 loss to City.
McFarlane is interim. The club has been through a managerial change mid-season, somehow ended up at Wembley under a caretaker, and lost to a goal that nobody could have planned for. That’s not a damning result in itself. The squad showed something — they defended well for long stretches, created some chances, didn’t capitulate after going behind.
But the summer conversation at Stamford Bridge is going to be complicated. Who’s managing this team next season? What’s the identity? They have Enzo Fernández, Estêvão, Levi Colwill, Pedro Neto, Jorrel Hato — real players, players who should be in a team competing for things. They keep competing in finals and leaving without anything.
McFarlane said something pointed about Haaland’s physicality after the game — “anywhere else on the pitch those are fouls” — and he wasn’t wrong exactly, but City won regardless of however that conversation goes.
The routes both clubs took to get here
For the manchester city vs chelsea context: this was the first time these clubs had met in an FA Cup final specifically. They’ve met in EFL Cup finals and Community Shields before, with City winning both of those.
City’s run: beat Exeter City 10-1 in the third round. Not a misprint. Then a 4-0 quarter-final against Liverpool with Haaland getting a hat-trick. Then a semifinal comeback against Southampton — went behind to Finn Azaz, won 2-1 with goals from Doku and Nico González. Four consecutive finals; nobody in FA Cup history had done that before.
The only moment that matters
The fa cup final produced one goal, named player of the match without controversy, and left everyone — including Guardiola, briefly — slightly open-mouthed. Semenyo’s finish isn’t the kind of thing you practice with any reliable expectation it’ll work in a cup final.
He’s going to be asked about it for the rest of his career. Where’d that come from. Did you plan it. What were you thinking. The honest answer is probably that he just reacted faster than anyone else on the pitch, including Sánchez, could process.
City are champions. Chelsea go into a summer of questions. Wembley delivered the kind of moment that justifies the competition’s existence.
Good cup final, in the end. The goal helped.
