FOOTBALL’S THE WINNER

Britain’s best columnist at Wembley Tielemans gem was quality, but the fans made this final so special... it felt like a REAL match

ABIDE With Me has never been to everyone’s musical taste and is, it is fair to say, quite literally, a bit of a dirge.

But sung by the B Positive Choir, a collection of people which includes many who have bloodrelated illnesses, it has never sounded so good.

It is hard to believe there was anyone inside Wembley Stadium who did not have goosebumps. This was an FA Cup Final.

This was a landmark first win for Leicester City. This was a serious piece of history.

But maybe most significantly, this was a day when it felt as though real football was back.

The milling and mixing on what will always be known as Wembley Way, Prince William making awkward small talk with the players, the mock outrage about a foreign manager wearing his trackie for the great occasion.

Ten quid for a match programme, traffic jams all day. And, of course, the fans. Around 22,000 of them.

They were not all partisan, the two clubs getting 6,000 apiece, but they were all fans.

And enough noise was made to make this the first raucous atmosphere since the first lockdown was imposed.

Yes, there were regulations and restrictions. Plenty of them.

Proof of a recent negative Covid test had to be shown, no one under the age of 16 was allowed in and a social distance of 0.9 metres was enforced with varying degrees of vigour.

But it still felt like, well, a proper football match. Even the idiots were back, but at least the few who jeered the players when they took a knee were soon drowned out by those who applauded the gesture.

And it felt like the good old days when you heard referee Michael Oliver getting some traditional pelters, when you heard the ironic cheering as Timo Werner, unsurprisingly, hit one that flew 20ft over the crossbar.

In fact, this was a match that sounded better than it looked, and on that sounded better than it was.

This was a match surprisingly low on quality… until Youri Tielemans, an absolute gem of a player and the best on the park even before the goal, stepped up just after the hour mark.

But do you know what was almost as joyous as his right-footed hit from 25 yards that arrowed unerringly into the top corner?

The celebrations in front of the Leicester City fans. People jumping on each other, singing, dancing, all those alien practices, all at once.

Perhaps the scenes kept Chris Kavanagh, presumably looking at a possible handball in the preamble, quiet in VAR HQ.

But when the scenes were repeated Chelsea-style, they did not keep Kavanagh and his helpers quiet.

Up went the offside lines and Chelsea’s equaliser was chalked off.

A controversial and dramatic end to a fairly mundane game and a demonstration that, when supporters are in the stadium, the coldness and callousness of VAR will NOT stop players and fans celebrating.

There were two for one when Chelsea thought they had levelled.

On the balance of play, Thomas Tuchel’s side probably deserved a crack at extra-time, but, somehow, the Leicester City story was a more fitting narrative for the day.

The history, the emotions and the poignancy as the owner looked down. There were tears among the players, tears among the staff and tears in the owner’s seat.

Kasper Schmeichel sprinted the length of the pitch to leap towards his own fans and all his team-mates followed in one glorious train.

Meanwhile, Chelsea players lay still, face-down in disappointment, their fans leaving the scene to Leicester supporters twirling their shirts above their heads.

This is what real football can generate. This is what real football means. This was a day when it felt as though real football was back.