Caballero the unlikely hero as City secure special cup triumph

Forget Monday morning blues, Manchester City fans rose to start this week feeling like they were walking on air after watching their team lift the Capital One Cup at Wembley on Sunday. Well, no doubt there will have been a few with sore heads, having toasted the win with a beer or two, but they will have found the hangover was completely worth it.

City overcame cup-final opponents Liverpool in nerve-shredding fashion. The match could best be described as a ‘slow burner’; the first half was, at times, a fairly drab affair as both teams tried to weigh each other up. There was even a hint of Wembley nerves having a little impact as both sides conceded possession cheaply in the early exchanges. There were few clear-cut chances in the opening 45 minutes– the best one fell to Sergio Agüero but Simon Mignolet superbly saved his effort onto the post.

It was in the second half that the match turned into a truly engrossing cup final. Within two minutes of the restart, Agüero had found himself free in the box and opted to shoot, firing wide. It was a warning of what was to come. In the 49th minute, the Argentine striker found himself in a similar position but this time, he laid the ball to Fernandinho. The Brazilian fired low across the goal and through Mignolet who, for the only time in the game, really ought to have done better than he did.

One goal is never a comfortable lead, particularly in an atmosphere as tense as that at a cup final. As the final stages approached, there seemed an inevitability that Liverpool would equalise. That feeling is hard to describe; the Reds had not registered a shot on target and City had clearly been the better side. The Blues had missed several good chances though, the worst of which saw Raheem Sterling tap tamely wide when missing was harder than scoring, this spurning the ‘old boy haunts former club’ narrative that had seemingly been written for him.

The equaliser came in the 83rd minute when Phillipe Coutinho tucked in a rebound shot and sent the red side of the national stadium into absolute pandemonium. The smell of the red flares that had been smuggled into the ground, to be let off in the event of a goal, engulfed Wembley. It felt like Liverpool had the momentum in their favour and it would have been easy for City to let their heads drop. Instead, an added thirty minutes failed to separate the teams and penalties were required.

For those who have never witnessed a cup final penalty shoot-out, it is hard to adequately describe the feeling. It feels too harrowing to watch yet you can’t take your eyes off it at all. When Fernandinho hit the post with his first penalty to give Liverpool an immediate advantage, the despair in the City end was palpable. Fortunately for the Brazilian, Jesüs Navas, Sergio Agüero and Yaya Touré were more precise with their spot kicks.

However, the real story of the day belonged to goalkeeper Willy Caballero. The Argentine was the subject of much criticism in the week leading up to the game after putting in a truly atrocious display in the FA Cup against Chelsea. Manager Manuel Pellegrini’s loyalty to the shot stopper, who had started every other round of the cup, was strongly questioned by the media and supporters. Football being football, the script had been written for the much-vilified ‘keeper to be the hero of the day. He saved three successive Liverpool penalties to guide City towards a heart-stopping win and deliver the first trophy of the season. From vilified by his own supporters to having his name belted out on Wembley Way in celebration, only football can write these kind of stories.

There were plenty of individual stories to latch on to. After Caballero had saved Adam Lallana’s penalty , Yaya Touré was the man presented with the opportunity to seal the victory. The Ivorian has long been synonymous with successful Wembley visits – this one seems certain to be his last. It was fitting that he expertly dispatched his shot to claim one last personal glory on a ground where he has made himself an icon.

Raheem Sterling, lambasted by the press and heckled at every ground he plays at for having the audacity to be ambitious, now has his first major trophy to his name. The 21-year-old came to City to develop as a player and win silverware; he has done both and will continue to do so. That he had a bad game against his former employer is by-the-by here – he now has a foundation from which he can build.

Vincent Kompany has missed a huge chunk of the season because of injury. However, the captain proved his fitness by playing the full two hours and maintaining a typically high standard throughout, even doing enough to pick up the Man of the Match award.

A huge amount of credit must go to Manuel Pellegrini. The Chilean will leave City in the summer and has come under fire this season as his side have frustrated in the Premier League – I am no stranger to criticising the manager myself. However, he has remained dignified and honourable as his impending unemployment approaches and it is just reward that he has a trophy in his final season.

The final glory, as ever, belongs to the supporters. It is no longer quite appropriate to call City fans ‘long-suffering’, but it is still the case that this fan base is living through an era that seemed impossible less than a decade ago. For so long, this club lived in the shadow of their neighbours as they suffered one calamity after another. A 35-year spell without a trophy ended in 2011; the 2016 Capital One Cup is the club’s fifth major trophy since then. For the fans that nearly blew the roof off Wembley when Touré slotted home the decisive penalty, every trophy means as much as the first. May there be many more days like this to come.