Displaying items by tag: Wembley

Rio Ferdinand and Helen Skelton look back at the most celebrated, most shocking, and most memorable moments from the greatest domestic football cup competition in the world.

In an interview with a leading sports psychologist, Dan Abrahams, he explained it is correct mental preparation which will give Watford the better chance of beating Manchester City on 18th May at the FA Cup Final.

You dream of playing in a Wembley final as a young kid and when you get there you don't perform and it can stay with you for a very long time. Unlike at Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea in recent years, you don't get the opportunity too many times to go back and show a 100,000 the real you.

If you were to come up with a footballing first eleven dedicated purely to the colourful, wonderful, edgy and slightly unhinged players ever to have played the beautiful game, one Jose Rene Higuita Zapata would undoubtedly find its way on to most lists. As certain that you would find a Cantona, an Edmundo or a Robin Friday, the colourful crazy Colombian wouldn’t be out of place in such company. He would find his way in the team,

Walter Smith’s 1995 summer capture of England’s star of Italia 90 was seen as an absolute coup de maitre.  His arrival at Ibrox captured the imagination of the obsessive Gers fan base and stoked up expectations to white hot level.  And despite Gazza’s appalling injury record and a much maligned battle with his erratic weight gain, the ‘Geordie Galactico’ proved to be as successful as the manager who signed him by amassing the biggest trophy haul of his career; two League Championships, one Scottish Cup and one League Cup.  Furthermore, he secured a place in the greatest ever Glasgow Rangers team and was also rightfully inducted into the Rangers Hall of Fame.

“On the field, first at Newcastle, later with England, Spurs, Lazio and Rangers, he was a surging, exhilarating phenomenon. At his best he slalomed past defenders, sprayed precision passes and shot explosively from unexpected angles and distances. And he did it all with infectious glee.For a whole generation of fans he was simply the most appealing and captivating English football player they had seen. He could be crass but he could also be anarchically funny,