Manchester United men's team played 55 times at Wembley — Mark Skinner's team achieves its first recognition : Reuters/Molly Darlington
It was 75 years ago, in the 1948 Men's FA Cup Final, when the Manchester United men's team played at the National Stadium for the first time, and since winning the Champions League Cup in February, their team has taken part in a total of 55 matches at Wembley. Not all of these matches were major finals, as this includes fixtures such as two Premier League away matches when Tottenham Hotspur played temporarily at Wembley between 2017 and 2019, plus several defeats in Cup semi-finals England, but for the most part it's an impressive result. a figure reflecting the club's many years of success. With a craving for silverware, of course, comes familiarity with Wembley.
That's one of the reasons Saturday's victory over Brighton will be symbolic for the women's club, setting them up for a Wembley date against either Aston Villa or Chelsea. This journey seems extremely overdue.
In Manchester United's defence, only seven women's clubs have played in cup finals at Wembley, which did not host an FA Women's Cup final until 2015 and never hosted. to the Women's League Cup final. But Manchester United's delay in even being able to play there was extended by the club's own decision not to even have a senior women's team for 13 years between 2005 and 2018, when they reformed and entered the second. tier of the pyramid.
Since then, their progress has been rapid, rising immediately in their first season and then immediately cementing themselves in the top four in the WSL, but their three main rivals have kept them from any major honors so far. In the eight FA Cup finals that have been played since 2015, Chelsea (four wins), Manchester City (three) and Arsenal (one) have held the cup in a stranglehold.
Manchester United v Brighton «: key battles
Mark Skinner's team has never had a better chance to write history this season as they compete for both the league and the cup. The leaders of the women's Super League take on Saturday (beginning 17:15) at the Lay Sports Village club of the highest division. competition — and whichever club wins, its women's team will have their first trip to Wembley, because the women of Brighton have yet to play under the famous arch. However, there is significantly less pressure on the Sussex club as their top priority is to stay in the WSL this season. The semi-final will be their first match since Melissa Phillips was named their new head coach last week.
Despite his team's last win over Brighton 4-0, on April 1st Skinner refuses to be complacent, saying: «We have a really tough semi-final to get through first. We would like to reach the final, compete in the final and win the final in the future, but we have a very difficult task ahead of us [against Brighton]. I want us to go and hunt for any opponent that gets in the way of success, turn up the heat against each opponent, knowing that Brighton in particular will be very difficult to play."
However, Skinner believes his team is now more battle-hardened to deal with big games than they were last season, and added when asked about his team's progress from last year's trophy-free fourth-place finish: ; The secret is in the experience. We all know that a coach can create conditions and expectations, but the reality is that if a player doesn't have the experience to take charge of the moment, then that moment can be missed. Our players learn, grow and gain experience in big moments of ruthlessness and that's where I think you see the difference, the great experience of losing last season and then coming into this season.
"We learned from last season when we probably ran into stumbling blocks and at the time we didn't really have the mental determination to overcome it or even really the ability to make a difference. a game that we can do this year where we can add a bit of physicality to the games, or some wide players, or stealth so we can adapt form and I've been really happy with how the players have adapted to that"
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