Lloyd shines as City join in the fun by lifting cup
It took barely 20 minutes for the first Mexican wave to break out at Wembley yesterday, but for once it was not a reflection of the quality of the football on show. This was instead a spontaneous outpouring of excitement among a record-breaking crowd for the women’s FA Cup final.
With children admitted free, the national stadium teemed with families and a feeling of fun coursed through the stands for the showpiece event of the women’s game in England. The same feeling surged through the veins of Manchester City Women, the undisputed best women’s team in the land, who swaggered and then strolled their way to a memorable victory.
Birmingham City Ladies always knew they were in for a tough game against the star-studded City, but they cannot have expected it to have been as painful as this. City tore them apart in a devastating 15-minute spell in the first half, and then displayed the sort of arrogance and control that Pep Guardiola has so desperately tried to instil in their male counterparts.
Not that the one-sided nature of the final put a dampener on too many of the 35,000 fans who streamed into Wembley. This, after all, felt like more of a festival of football than a partisan collection of opposing sets of supporters, with youngsters happily wearing the kits of teams such as Aston Villa and Chelsea, as well as the two sides actually on show. In a season where crowd violence has once again reared its ugly head, it was very much an occasion for spectators to drink in the atmosphere, rather than pints.
City’s women will have earned their celebratory tipple after this, though, and the party that started on the pitch will surely have extended long into the night. Goals from Lucy Bronze, Isobel Christiansen, Jill Scott and the unplayable Carli Lloyd were enough to ensure their status as England’s dominant club side, despite a late strike from Charlie Wellings raising hopes of a comeback.
For Birmingham, who had stunned Chelsea and Arsenal on their way to the final, it was a case of one hurdle too far. They will leave the capital disappointed, but knowing they came up against a side playing at the top of their game. Birmingham manager Marc Skinner accepted the game was “done” by half-time. “We had a plan,” he said. “But they were really clinical in the first period.”
This was a Wembley debut for both sides, and Birmingham’s first appearance in the FA Cup final since they triumphed in 2012 in front of around 8,000 fans at Bristol’s Ashton Gate. To say things have changed since then would be a major understatement, and the transformation of their opponents here provides a case in point. When Birmingham lifted the trophy in 2012, City had yet to play in the top flight of women’s football and were still just an affiliate of the men’s club.
Fast-forward five years and they have been absorbed into the parent company, changed their name from Manchester City Ladies to Women and benefited from the cold, hard cash of the club’s owners to such an extent that they now hold all three major domestic trophies. “This year our main target was the FA Cup,” said City manager Nick Cushing. “So we are ecstatic now because we hold the domestic treble.”
As the money has poured in, so the star players have followed. The brightest of those is Lloyd, who simply operated on a different level for long periods here. Lloyd enjoys such a strong global standing that her preparation for this final consisted of flying to Bahrain last week to speak at the Fifa Congress, alongside footballing icons such as Ronaldinho and Diego Maradona.
If an 8,500-round mile trip to Bahrain comes across as unusual in the build-up to a cup final, then her treatment as a certified ‘Fifa Legend’ at the event should not.
The two-times Fifa World Player of the Year can add her strike here to winning goals in two Olympic gold-medal matches and a 16-minute hat-trick in the World Cup final of 2015. Wembley was therefore a fitting place to showcase her talent before she returns to the US next month.
City dominated the early stages, and the goal took just 18 minutes to arrive. Megan Campbell’s inswinging freekick from the right found Bronze, who glanced a header into the top corner. It was Bronze who created the second, clipping in a cross for Christiansen, who drove a half-volley into the roof of the net. Birmingham were dazed, and it was three before they snapped out of it. Campbell was again the provider, sending in a deep cross that Lloyd nodded in at the back post to continue her biggame record.
“Being favourites put us under a tiny bit of pressure,” said City captain Steph Houghton. “But this is what this team is all about – big players who can cope with big occasions, and that showed in the first half.”
A glimmer of hope emerged for Birmingham through a rasping strike from substitute Wellings, but it was soon quelled as Scott danced into the box and blasted home for an emphatic finish to an emphatic victory.
Birmingham City (3-4-1-2): Berger 5; Sargeant 5, Mannion 5, Harrop 6; Mayling 5, Hegerberg 6 (Peplow 83), Carter 7, Williams 5 (Stringer 88); White 5; Brazil 6, Ayisi 5 (Wellings 64). Subs Baggaley (g), Westwood. Booked Carter. Manchester City (4-3-3) Bardsley 6; Bronze 8, Houghton 7, Campbell 7 (McManus 78), Stokes 7; Scott 8, Walsh 8, Christiansen 8; Parris 8 (Stanway 70), Lloyd 8 , Lawley 7 (Duggan 56). Subs Hourihan (g), Beattie. Referee R Welch (Durham).