Brighton 0-4 Manchester City: Women's Super League champions claim emphatic FA Cup triumph

Manchester City overcame a sluggish start to cruise to a rampant 4-0 victory over Brighton in the Women's FA Cup final.

City, who won the Women's Super League title this season, completed a domestic double in emphatic style at Wembley.

Brighton, making their first appearance in an FA Cup final, started brightly, and an injury to City goalkeeper Ayaka Yamashita seemed to rattle Andree Jeglertz's team even more.

Yamashita stayed on, though, and having weathered the storm, City nosed ahead when leading scorer Khadija Shaw sent a looping header home from Alex Greenwood's cross in the 38th minute.

City captain Greenwood turned from provider to scorer on the stroke of half-time, sending a pinpoint free-kick into the bottom-right corner.

Any hopes of a Brighton comeback were extinguished midway through the second half, with Aoba Fujino, just on as a substitute, seeing an effort deflect in beyond Chiamaka Nnadozie.

City's rout was complete in the 87th minute when Vivianne Miedema, who missed the WSL run-in due to personal reasons, headed in to cap a sweeping move.

Data Debrief: Man City double up

This marked City's fifth FA Cup final appearance. They won their first three finals but lost 3-2 to Chelsea in 2021-22, so they will have wanted to make up for last time, and they did just that.

City have become the third club to win the WSL and the FA Cup in the same season, after Arsenal (2011) and Chelsea (2015, 2017-18, 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2024-25).

Jeglertz demanded tactical perfection from his team, and City ultimately put on a clinic in front of goal.

Their 14 shots were only two more than Brighton managed (12), but City got 10 of theirs on target and accumulated 1.97 expected goals, compared to Brighton's 0.94 xG.

Shaw, who has agreed to stay on at City, has now scored 20 goals in just 19 appearances in the FA Cup, while Greenwood is the first player to score a free-kick in the competition's showpiece match since Arsenal's Kelly Smith against Everton 12 years ago.