Yesterday saw the first semi-final of the FA Cup, where Manchester City faced Chelsea. The match ended with a narrow victory for the Cityzens, with a score of 1-0 thanks to Bernardo Silva’s goal in the 84th minute.

After the match, Manchester City’s head coach, Pep Guardiola, voiced sharp criticism of the English football authorities. In his opinion, it was unacceptable to schedule their match on Saturday when it could have been moved to Sunday.

Guardiola’s sentiments were echoed by his players. Following the match, during an interview with Sky Sports, Bernardo Silva, the scorer of the winning goal, also commented:

“Today we didn’t play on equal terms because the Football Association didn’t give us a chance to recover. In my view, it’s utterly unreasonable.

I’m saying this because we won. If we hadn’t won, I wouldn’t be saying this because I don’t like to make excuses. But I think it’s unacceptable that we had to play.

We played 120 minutes three days ago, and our opponent was a team that didn’t have to travel anywhere, as they are from London. They had five days to wait for this game and prepare for it.”

Remarkably, the English Football Association decided to schedule Manchester City’s match on Saturday, while Manchester United and Coventry City will play on Sunday. The Red Devils and the Sky Blues played their match on Saturday, whereas Chelsea played their Premier League match on Monday, and Manchester City participated in the Champions League on Wednesday.