On the 13th of February Stoke City and Manchester City played out a simple football match in the F.A Cup 5th round. This would turn out to be the first instalment in a thrilling trilogy, full of red cards, red heads and red faces.
Stoke City v Manchester City Part 1 was a stalemate, a match befitting an honest film, decent cast, predictable ending but overall a real sense that there was more to come. The game felt a little like 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly', you half expected Clint Eastwood to drift into the ghost town like atmosphere that was Eastland’s and tell both managers to come back at dawn as this was most definitely unfinished business. The F.A Cup is a master piece of a competition, it would clean up at the Academy awards with several OSCAR's tucked under each arm and this is one tournament that every supporter wants to have a copy of. The question would be on the 24th of February which team would walk up the red carpet, collect the adulation and walk through into the quarter finals.
The agonising part to this trilogy of matches was that we couldn’t get straight to the replay because of rearranged league match the two teams had to play and this would take place at the home of Stoke City. The intimidating Britannia Stadium lovingly nicknamed 'The Bear Pit' because of the vociferous, loud and partisan home support. This was however an environment that Roberto Mancini was accustomed to having managed Inter Milan back in Italy but this was different, he was on foreign soil.
Mancini uncharacteristically based his whole team on size, every player must have been standing on tip-toes in a last ditch chance to get a starting place to prove to the manager that size doesn’t matter when you play Stoke, it’s how high you can jump towards Rory Delap's very own long range throws. Stoke City have their own arsenal of weapons in their team, they have the blistering pace of Ricardo Fuller, the sublime skills of Tuncay Sanli and a defence that would give the Spartan Warriors of ancient Greece a fight. These are not the weapons I am referring to but the weapon is a man who can throw a ball further than most can kick it. This is used to superb affect on the Britannia's narrow pitch. Roberto Mancini has the most expensively assembled team in the British game, Man City are the richest club in the world, he has won Italian titles and little old Stoke have reduced this man to picking his players out of a line up.
Tony Pulis now had a chance to say to his troops that it was down to them now, it was a time for his players to forget about the cup and focus on a meagre 3 points instead of cup glory. To Tony Pulis though, the League is his bread and butter, he prefers the league, he would rather finish 10th in the league rather than reach a cup final but that is the man. His stoic attitude towards achieving a goal in unwavering, he sends out his players with one thing on their minds 'don’t loose' and this is exactly what happened.
The game itself was poor to begin with, little action but livened up when Frenchman Patrick Vieira decided that Glen Whelan deserved to have his intimate area checked by the studs in his boots. The talented Irish midfielder took it like man and continued to play with a slight tear in his eye and the relief that he still had two and not one on the end of Vieira's boot.
The temperature was white hot when Stoke were reduced to 10 men when their Senegalese man mountain Abdoulaye Faye was sent off for pulling the lanky Toga striker Emmanuelle Adebayor down and the referee decided it was his time in the limelight. Stoke took the lead through the unscathed Whelan but when Barry equalized we feared for another 1-1 stalemate. There would be one more twist in this game that would shape the final game in the trilogy. His name was Alan Whiley, he was the referee and he wanted to take centre stage.
Rory Delap sent a long ranged missile into the visitors penalty area, Man City players running around in panic as Ryan Shawcross leapt high above the falling goalkeeper to score deep into stoppage time. The celebrations were short lived as Mr Whiley rather like an emperor in the gladiatorial arena waved his finger in the wrong direction to signal a foul on the keeper. The man had obviously read the script and thought he'd cover it in black pen, photocopy it and send it to the film company as he knew he had set us all up for a blockbuster of a finale.
Wednesday 24th of February, Tony Pulis and Roberto Mancini stood next to each other, they had front row seats but would refuse to sit down in case they missed a second. Similar to the league this game didn’t get going till an intervention by the referee. This time it was Adebayor, he was sent off for using his elbow then what can only be described as Tony Pulis having an outer body experience. I can relate this moment to any 'Star Wars' scene where Jedi will use the force to conjure up all their strength and act on it. The force was strong with Pulis as he made 3 substitutions that changed the game. The Turkish play-maker Tuncay was introduced, the flame haired striker Dave Kitson brought back from the footballing wilderness and Danny Pugh.
To say these changes were magical would be an understatement, within 5 mins of entering the ring Tuncay had threaded a ball through the eyes of Mordor where Kitson turned brilliantly to hit the back of the net. The home fans went into delirium, 'Super Dave Kitson' rang around the bear pit like a space shuttle launch. Mancini was downbeat but hardly a second had gone by when they were level, the pantomime villain that Craig Bellamy plays so well nicked the ball home for an equalizer. The game went into extra time, men all around the stadium were quickly sending mundane but very apologetic texts to their partners that it would be 'a late one' and not 'to wait up', this game would go to the wire.
The travelling City supporters started half heartedly to sing their favourite song 'Blue Moon' but this was quickly turning into 'Moon River' and the man playing this sad song was Roberto Mancini. He knew that his players were tired and lacked motivation, he knew that Tony Pulis had just given an awe inspiring team talk that would of raised the dead and above all else the home fans knew that what you put in, you always get back and boy did they sing.
The final quarter of this riveting trilogy was about to be finalised, the end scene was about to be unveiled and over 20,000 supporters were ready for the end. Stoke City scored two goals in quick succession to take the game. They served this up with a giant piece of humble pie when Shawcross headed Stoke into the lead before Tuncay finished City off with a pure slice of Turkish Delight to send Tony Pulis into the quarter finals and a meeting with Chelsea.
The final whistle came with the home fans singing 'You should of kept Mark Hughes' referring to the previous Manchester City Manager who by coincidence is a fellow Welshman to Pulis. I hear the Italian translation for this coincidence is that the Welsh are better than the Italians and please remind me once again what nationality is Chelsea Coach Carlo Anchelotti?... case closed I think.
Dave Kitson and Tuncay celebrate Stoke's win
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