Was it ever in doubt that Khadija Shaw would grab the headlines? Never. A ruthless Manchester City side won the Women’s FA Cup for a fourth time and completed the Double as they eventually coasted to a 4-0 win over Brighton, with Shaw celebrating signing her new contract with a Wembley goal that exemplified her value to the club.
The peerless Shaw and her City teammates provided Brighton with a harsh lesson on the importance of taking your chances in a final, with Albion having looked the stronger side for large parts of the game but having lacked the clinical edge in the final third that the league champions demonstrated after riding out some pressure.
Shaw, who had been expected to leave the club this summer on a free transfer before performing a dramatic U-turn to sign a lucrative new contract on Monday, nodded her team in front at Wembley, before Alex Greenwood’s fine free-kick, Aoba Fujino’s deflected effort and Vivianne Miedema’s angled header enabled City to lift the cup for the first time since 2020, and for the first time with spectators permitted inside the stadium for seven years, as their most recent FA Cup triumph had been staged behind closed doors.
Added to their first Women’s Super League title in a decade, the victory completed a memorable season for Andrée Jeglertz and his confident team, albeit the scoreline will have confused anybody who watched only the opening half an hour.
“In the first half I said to [Lauren Hemp]: ‘They are poppin’ it!’ We didn’t know what to do in the first 20 minutes, and then we had a break and said, ‘Let them keep it at the back’ and try to go man for man, and that worked,” Shaw said. “It’s been a crazy few weeks, lots of emotions: signing a contract, to be here winning the FA Cup. The last time I was at Wembley, I lost so I wanted to correct that today.”
Brighton, who were playing in their first Wembley final and were seeking to win their entire club’s first major silverware, spurned early opportunities for Fran Kirby and Kiko Seike, and City took the lead against the run of play, courtesy of the first genuine moment of quality they had produced in the match.
Greenwood’s dangerous cross from the left, sent deep towards the far post, seemed to hang in the air momentarily and was perfectly placed for Shaw, who outjumped Chiamaka Nnadozie and nodded in. Brighton momentarily appealed for a foul on the goalkeeper but replays showed Shaw’s leap had been a fair one and Nnadozie had simply been beaten in the air.
Greenwood’s reliable left foot was key to the second goal too, moments before the half-time whistle. Everybody in Brighton’s wall looked to be expecting the right-footer Kerolin to take the free-kick but Greenwood caught them, and Nnadozie, by surprise as she whipped her effort into the other corner. It was the City captain’s first goal for more than two years.
Shaw nearly had a second late in the game but her fierce, rising strike was touched over the bar by Nnadozie. Jade Rose then looped a volley over, from a Shaw cross, at the second phase after a corner, before Shaw was given a well-earned rest and substituted amid warm applause. She was replaced by a City fans’ favourite in Laura Coombs, who made her final appearance before retirement. Another substitute, Miedema, had injected great class to Manchester City’s attacked when she was brought on with just under half an hour remaining and she deservedly got on the scoresheet when she glanced home Kerstin Casparij’s right-wing cross late on.
Dario Vidosic, the Brighton head coach, was happy with his team’s performance overall, saying: “To show that bravery, to play the way we did, to pin them back [was pleasing], and it looked like we were causing them a lot of issues. Then, conceding two softer goals made it very difficult. When they bring the likes of Viv on, and the quality that she possesses, they were very, very lethal today with the chances that they had, and that’s just something that we need to keep working on.
“As much as we’ll be disappointed with today, I feel the result is a little bit unfair on the girls, in particular, for the way they performed, and their effort. But it wasn’t that long ago where we were probably fighting to get five minutes of dominance against a City team, and then to do what we did today, at Wembley, to be that brave, I’m really, really proud.”
With their four titles, City are the fifth most successful club in Women’s FA Cup history, behind only Chelsea, Doncaster Belles (both six titles), Southampton Women’s FC’s eight cup wins and the record 14-time winners, Arsenal. All four of City’s wins have come since 2017. Next season they will return to the Champions League, with a first European title perhaps the next milestone still outstanding.
