No Romantic Portsmouth win in Brilliant Cup Final

It finished 1-0, and to the side that were well and truly favourites – but don’t let that fool you into thinking that this was a dissapointing FA Cup final. A fantastic match, as the above highlights testify.

To recap, Portsmouth had a fairy-tale run to the final, despite finishing Rock Bottom of the Premier League, being very close to going out of business, and took on Premier League Champions Chelsea. David vs Goliath indeed.

And in the first 45 Chelsea played like Goliath, creating chance after chance, hitting the woodwork five times, Kalou missing an unbelieveable sitter and Didier Drogba thinking he opened the scoring after his shot did a Geoff Hurst and bounced of the crossbar onto the line below. Marginal, but the linesman called it as a no-goal.

Portsmouth themselves had a golden chance to score but a reflex save from Cech kept them out.

Portsmouth came out the Second Half fighting, and incredibly got a penalty, Petr Cech became only the third goalkeeper to save a Penalty in the FA Cup Final (and first for 19 years) and Chelsea went up the other end, and Drogba scored a superb Free Kick.

That deflated Pompy, and the match was in Chelsea’s control. Even a rare missed Frank Lampard penalty in the final five minutes couldn’t spoil the party, and Chelsea have done the first League and Cup double in their history – Only the 11th time its happened in English Football.

Unlucky for Avram Grant – this is the second final he’s lost that’s come down to a penalty kick. Maybe he should be the next England manager?

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Category: England, English Premier League, World Football