Pep Guardiola, the FA Cup final, Wembley...and a fitting send-off?

Pep Guardiola has enjoyed huge success at Wembley in the past – though not always in the FA Cup (Getty)

City lost the 2024 and 2025 FA Cup finals, to United and Palace. Guardiola has made history in many an enviable fashion, but he runs the risk of making the unwanted variety on Saturday. Only Chelsea, between 2020 and 2022, have lost three consecutive FA Cup finals. City have reached all four since – an unprecedented feat – and Guardiola’s achievement of appearing in the semi-finals in eight successive seasons is unparalleled. Yet for a man defined by what he has won, a sequence of near-misses would scarcely count as a triumph.

Guardiola can be a footballing revolutionary in some respects. In others, however, he is a traditionalist. Many an import has been accused of not taking the FA Cup seriously enough. That charge cannot be levelled at him. Indeed, when the teamsheets were posted against Palace on Wednesday, there was an argument he was taking it too seriously, that he was sacrificing the outside chance of regaining the Premier League title to prioritise his chances of a cup double. A 3-0 win reframed his choices, while also perhaps expanding his options on Saturday.

Wembley was the scene of one of the finest performances by a Pep Guardiola side as Barcelona won the Champions League in 2011 (Getty)

Many a City employee did not expect Phil Foden to play in the centre of midfield against Palace. He did and starred, which could have an added pertinence as Guardiola is unsure if Rodri will be fit to feature. He has circled through alternatives in his compatriot’s absence, giving Bernardo Silva four different sidekicks in as many Premier League starting 11s, even before factoring in substitutes such as Mateo Kovacic and John Stones. Nico Gonzalez, who missed the Palace game, may hope his spectacular semi-final winner against Southampton would earn him the nod. A past FA Cup final has, in its own way, illustrated Rodri’s importance: City’s 2024 defeat to United, with an unexpectedly poor performance, was their first with the Spaniard starting in 74 appearances. Otherwise, he tends to be a talisman.

Rodri has a famous capacity to score important goals for City. Erling Haaland has delivered them in vast quantities but one of those rested against Palace on Wednesday is still to break one duck: he has never struck for City in a final. Nico O’Reilly, another of those given a night off in midweek, was instead the talisman when City clinched the first of their trophies this season, with a Carabao Cup-winning double from left-back against Arsenal.

Manchester City have already won one Wembley final this season (Getty)

Then City were in the unfamiliar position of being underdogs. Now they are favourites again; although they were in Calum McFarlane’s first game in interim charge in January, when Chelsea instead pilfered a point at the Etihad Stadium. One way to assess the rivalry between these clubs is to note that City are unbeaten in 13 games, winning 10, dating back almost five years. Another is to point out that Chelsea’s last win came in their biggest ever meeting, the 2021 Champions League final.

It is a different Chelsea now, but not an entirely different City, though John Stones, Ruben Dias and Foden, starters then, may be substitutes now, and Rodri was left an unused replacement by Guardiola in Porto five years ago. Perhaps the only men to start both games will be the two captains, Reece James and Bernardo Silva. The Portuguese could depart as a double-winning captain, given the Premier League crown may be beyond City; Ilkay Gundogan signed off – the first time, anyway, before his ill-fated return – by lifting three trophies. He won the FA Cup against United with a brace, the quickest ever FA Cup final goal included.

Manchester City were beaten by Chelsea in the 2021 Champions League final (Getty)

Guardiola’s other FA Cup came with the joint biggest ever win in a final, 6-0 over Watford in 2019. For whatever reasons, he has found this the hardest domestic trophy to claim. No one has won more League Cups, only Sir Alex Ferguson more English league titles. He is tied in eighth place among managers for FA Cups, level with some legends, like Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Herbert Chapman, and some long-forgotten figures; and if Guardiola is likelier to remain in the first column than the second, the winner in him would like to take the silverware from the cathedral again.