THE CHANCE TO MAKE HISTORY
LEICESTER City manager Brendan Rodgers says his side have the chance to make history after reaching their first FA Cup final since 1969, writes Ollie King.
Kelechi Iheanacho’s secondhalf strike against Southampton in the semi-final at Wembley proved decisive for Leicester, whose last major final was in 2000, when a 2-1 League Cup final victory over Tranmere Rovers made them the last team to win the trophy at the old Wembley.
“I have been made aware since I’ve been at Leicester how important this cup is for the supporters,” said Rodgers.
“We have the chance to create history. When we arrived here, that was the ambition. From a football perspective, we wanted to be able to compete and have been able to do that.
“Now we have a trophy to genuinely go for.”
The semi-final was part of a pilot scheme to allow fans back into football stadiums and was the biggest attendance since the country went into lockdown last March.
And Rodgers expressed how great it felt to finally hear fans in the stadium again.
“Even though there were only 4,000 fans, it felt great,” he said.
“It will be amazing when we get supporters back into stadiums. I did hear some Leicester supporters in there and it was really nice.”
The Northern Irishman was also keen to highlight how last year’s Carabao Cup semi-final defeat to Aston Villa had spurred on his players to not fall at the same stage in this season’s FA Cup.
“The players have shown that they’re constantly learning,” he said. “I said to them last after the semi-final loss that failure is a real integral part of succeeding and even though it was tough, we’ve got to take it and learn from it.
“I think you saw the performance was very composed and mature and we got the goal that counted.”