Manchester City and Wigan will meet on the 11th May to determine who will win the 2012/2013 FA Cup. The 2011 winners made it through by beating the holders, Chelsea, in an end to end, tight fought contest. Wigan booked their place in to their first ever FA Cup final in the previous day after proving to be too much for Championship side Millwall.
The second semi-final was explosive from start to finish with both Petr Cech being called in to action early on. Eyebrows were raised over Roberto Mancini's decision to pick Costel Pantilimon over Joe Hart but the Romanian was tested too much in the first period. The deadlock was finally broken ten minutes before half-time when Samir Nasri somehow bulldozed his way to the six yard box before rolling the ball past the on-coming Cech. Vincent Kompany has a glorious chance to add a second shortly after when a Cech parry fell to him about eight yards out. But the Belgian hit his volley like a true defender and sliced it horribly wide.
City came out the better side in the second half and made it 2-0 just two minutes after the restart when Gareth Barry's header was met by Sergio Aguero, whose header fantastically curled in to the top corner. From the second goal, City were happy to soak up Chelsea pressure with the intention of catching them on the break.
But the introduction of Fernando Torres shortly after the hour mark proved to be an instant hit. A long throw saw both Torres and Demba Ba chase it and it somehow bamboozled the defenders. The ball ended up falling behind Ba but the striker managed to swivel round before smashing his effort past Pantilimon and in to the net, a similar goal to the quarter final one against Manchester United.
But Chelsea couldn't find a second goal although they did seem to have a decent penalty shout late on when Torres went down under a number of defenders pulling and pushing the Spaniard. Chris Foy said there was nothing in it and City held on to progress to the final.
Wigan watched that game in the knowledge that they were already through after beating Millwall. The Championship hadn't got used to width of the Wembley pitch and that proved to be their downfall on 25-minutes. Arouna Kone had found space down the wing and the Millwall defence all moved over the try and prevent the cross. But the Ivorian got a great ball to the far post where Shaun Maloney was waiting all on his own to side foot past David Forde with his first touch.
Millwall struggled to cope with Wigan during the first half but did have a chance to equalise early in the second half. The miss would end up haunting the London side as the victory was guaranteed 12-minutes before the end when Jordi Gomez fed Callum Mcmanaman in. McManaman managed to take the ball around Forde before slotting in to the empty net.
Unfortunately, Wigan's fantastic achievement has been marred by ugly scenes between the Millwall fans and police inside the stadium after the second goal was scored. What started the trouble is largely unknown but the violence ended up with some policemen injured and a few Millwall fans bloodied. What makes the violence even worse is knowing that there were children in the crowd who were crying because they were scared for their safety. These scenes should be witnessed by children who wanted to have big day out at Wembley with their parents to see their favourite football team. It's the first incident Millwall fans have ever been involved in and unfortunately, it probably won't be the last. But the scenes were ugly and the minority of the Millwall fans that did divulge in the violence need to be punished as football doesn't need this.
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