{"id":662781,"date":"2026-05-11T00:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T00:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/662781\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T00:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T00:10:10","slug":"mary-fowlers-manchester-city-beats-sam-kerrs-chelsea-in-fa-cup-semifinal-dario-vidosics-brighton-beats-liverpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/662781\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Fowler’s Manchester City beats Sam Kerr’s Chelsea in FA Cup semifinal, Dario Vido\u0161i\u0107’s Brighton beats Liverpool"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mary Fowler scored the goal that kick-started Manchester City’s fabulous late comeback to down Chelsea 3-2 and progress to the Women’s FA Cup final.<\/p>\n

Erin Cuthbert had given Chelsea an early lead before Matildas captain Sam Kerr added a second just before the hour mark to put the Blues in a comfortable position in front of a disappointing crowd of 7,773 at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n

Kerr should have had an earlier goal too, but it was disallowed after the referee erroneously decided it had gone out of play before Ellie Carpenter could swing in the cross and had a third effort ruled out for offside.<\/p>\n

That did not seem to matter though as the hosts dominated for 80 minutes of the match and were seemingly home and hosed on the path to Wembley.<\/p>\n

But Manchester City had other ideas.<\/p>\n

Fowler, only brought on a couple of minutes earlier as a sub, fired home a left-foot strike from 20 metres out in the 86th minute of the match \u2014 her first goal for City since February 2025 \u2014 to give hope where there had been none.<\/p>\n

Star striker Khadija Shaw then did the rest, levelling with a fine volley on the turn in added time before heading home from Yui Hasegawa’s cross in extra-time.<\/p>\n

It means Kerr, despite scoring 19 goals in 17 matches in the FA Cup in her career, may bow out without a Wembley swansong should she move to America’s NWSL with Denver next season.<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/p>\n

Sam Kerr scored one but had two disallowed as Chelsea crashed out of the FA Cup. (Getty Images: Jasper Wax)<\/p>\n

Manchester City’s victory sets up a clash against Brighton and Hove Albion, led by former Socceroo Dario Vido\u0161i\u0107.<\/p>\n

Vido\u0161i\u0107 could become the first Australian manager to lead an English team to FA Cup glory after Brighton pulled off an amazing comeback of their own to reach the final with a 3-2 win at Liverpool.<\/p>\n

The 39-year-old, who has carried on in England where he left off in Australia as Melbourne City’s A-League Women-winning boss, saw Brighton battle back from 2-0 down after 22 minutes before going on to prevail with a stoppage-time clincher.<\/p>\n

Liverpool felt they had been on course for the Wembley showdown on May 31 after first-half goals from Denise O’Sullivan and Beata Olsson.<\/p>\n

\"Dario<\/p>\n

Dario Vido\u0161i\u0107 could become Australia’s first FA Cup-winning coach. (Getty Images: The FA\/Kate McShane)<\/p>\n

But Albion levelled through Manuela Vanegas and Madison Haley before Dutch midfielder Nadine Noordam, who had been on the pitch for only six minutes, lashed home her first goal for the club in the 95th minute.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

Vido\u0161i\u0107 is the first Aussie manager to reach the final since Joe Montemurro last guided Arsenal to the 2021 showdown, but could go one better than the current Matildas coach who lost both his two Gunners’ finals.<\/p>\n

“It is a nice feeling when almost the last kick of the game hits the back of the net and sends us to Wembley,” Vido\u0161i\u0107 said.<\/p>\n

“The message to the girls will be, ‘Enjoy this moment, they deserve this moment.’<\/p>\n

“We want to continuously get better, and we want to go undefeated for the rest of the season.”<\/p>\n

Vido\u0161i\u0107 has done a remarkable job at the ambitious south-coast club, taking them to a record fifth-place in last year’s Women’s Super League, and having beaten both champions City, in the WSL, and European champions Arsenal, in the FA Cup, last month.<\/p>\n

ABC\/AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mary Fowler scored the goal that kick-started Manchester City’s fabulous late comeback to down Chelsea 3-2 and progress…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,55835,6187,320089,98551,2354,28533,44965,85,320090],"class_list":["post-662781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brighton","tag-chelsea","tag-dario-vidosic","tag-fa-cup","tag-manchester-city","tag-mary-fowler","tag-sam-kerr","tag-sports","tag-womens-fa-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}