Manchester United Vs. Manchester City, FA Cup Semi-Final: Full Time, Yaya Toure Steals The Show

Yaya Toure has stolen the show at Wembley Stadium for Manchester City, as the Blues have put together a fantastic final hour of football en route to a 1-0 win over their rivals Manchester United. City will be headed to their first FA Cup final in 30 years, where they will likely be favorites against the winner of tomorrow’s semi-final between Stoke City and Bolton Wanderers.

The lone goal came in the 54th minute from Toure, who might have been named man of the match even if he didn’t score the winner. The chance was created when Michael Carrick sloppily gave the ball away to Toure in his own half, and the Ivorian took advantage. After getting the ball, he powered past Nemanja Vidic and finished calmly, giving City the only goal they would need.

Manchester United almost got back into the game in the 65th minute through Nani and a bizarre free kick sequence. His effort took a deflection off of the head of Mario Balotelli, forcing Joe Hart into an awkward save. He could only manage to tip the ball onto the crossbar, but that was good enough to prevent the goal.

In the 72nd minute, Paul Scholes received a straight red card for a high boot on Pablo Zabaleta in true Paul Scholes fashion. His card put a serious dent in United’s hopes of coming back, and though they pumped balls into the box late in the game, they never recovered from going down to ten men. After a good first 30 minutes for United, the final hour belonged to the Blues.

Unfortunately, the match ended with a fight of sorts, which is hardly surprising. Also not surprising were the men involved in starting the incident, Mario Balotelli and Rio Ferdinand. Both of them shoved multiple players and appeared to use abusive language towards each other and other opposing players, and it will be interesting to see if the FA imposes any kind of retroactive punishment.