Liverpool defeats Manchester City and reaches the FA Cup final: Sadio Mane scores two goals

While City manager Pep Guardiola rotated in the starting line-up and left key goalkeepers Ederson, Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan on the bench, his counterpart Jurgen Klopp called up the eleven that have played so well lately.

Liverpool got off to a good start, coming in very hard and putting a lot of pressure on City. The Skyblues presented themselves surprisingly passively and barely stepping up their own game.

Ten minutes later, the time came: Ibrahima Konate jumped at the highest point and converted the first corner of the match with a header to make it 1-0 (10). The blow had an effect, as City remained neglected and did not seem to be awake on the pitch.

Shortly thereafter, substitute goalkeeper Zach Stephen suffered a bad blackout. After a back pass, the goalkeeper responded too late to the rushing Sadio Mane, who stole the ball off his foot with a peppy tackle and pushed it over the goal line (17).

After this strange blow, City showed more mental impact and didn’t have much to oppose the Reds. Even if Liverpool can’t create many chances overall, few have used them coldly. Sadio Mane turned a squad worth watching with a direct shot from about 15 meters into the short corner and made it 3-0 right before the break (45).

Surprisingly, City coach Guardiola did not react to the changes in the break despite his team’s desolate performance so far. But the surprise was the surprise goal of Jack Grealish shortly after the start of the second half. Gabriel Jesus took advantage of a blunder in the Reds’ defense and then sent it to his teammate Grealish, who scored from nearly ten meters to score 1:3 (47th place).

However, City failed to build momentum with a goal and Liverpool quickly regained control of the match. However, the defense around Virgil van Dijk & Co does not look quite as focused as in the first half.

Gabriel Jesus escaped from his guards again, but in a one-on-one confrontation with goalkeeper Alison, Alisson was able to show his class among the goalkeepers and block the goal with a strong defense with the foot (70). a

On the other hand, Mohamed Salah missed the best chance for Liverpool in the second half, jumping his arm over the crossbar from a distance of seven meters (72 minutes).

Although the city match was missing at every turn, save for a few individual actions, Guardiola did not consider it necessary to bring in new players until the final stage.

Riyad Mahrez came off the bench in the 83rd minute only, breathing life into the attacking match. The new Mahrez outperformed the “Reds” on the right wing with a counter-attack, and with a little luck he put that in favor of Bernardo Silva in the middle, who brought excitement in the last minutes with his goal to make the score 2-3 (90). +1).

But in the end, Manchester City’s efforts ended up being “too little, too late” to English fashion. City presented themselves very slowly for over 90 minutes and were only able to turn things around in injury time. On the other hand, Liverpool were content with a great performance in the first half and good nerves after the break to advance to the final.

Tweet about the game:

Liverpool FC qualified for the FA Cup Final. For Jurgen Klopp, this is his first FA Cup final as a coach.

Who caught the eye: Sadio Mane

The Senegalese impressively embodies the character of his entire team today. Two of his three shots on target landed in the net, and he won 80 percent of his duels – the most important and strangest of all was against City goalkeeper Stephen to make it 2-0.

Statistics: 4

Pep Guardiola missed four of his five chances to change. It can’t be fully explained, because Mahrez, who came in too late, immediately secured a massive improvement in City’s game. With such a passive strategy, Guardiola’s tactical fox must have miscalculated that day.