Olivier Giroud describes his feelings before the game and his ultimate goal for when he eventually retires: “I would like to win every trophy I can so one more would be nice, and even more to become the only team with 12 wins. It’s the big trophy after the Premier League.”
Admitting his desire to leave a legacy with Arsenal, Giroud said: “I would like to leave one or two good memories of my time here with Arsenal” and expresses how winning the FA Cup twice in two seasons, would help him to do that.
After Arsenal went 2-0 down to Hull City with only 5 minutes gone in last year’s triumph, Giroud has demanded Arsenal don’t make the same mistake, circling the importance of starting the game strongly: “It’s one of our strengths this year – we are starting games well and we need to not let them take confidence. We need to play our game from the beginning of the game.”
Also highlighting the importance of not making the same mistake was Mathieu Flamini who spoke to Arsenal Player earlier in the week: “We all agree it was a nightmare but we have more experience. We make sure to learn from our mistakes and not to do it again because we made it very difficult for ourselves last year. We’ll try to make it simpler and easier.”
Furthermore, with Arsenal ending their trophy drought of nearly 10 years, Flamini discussed how the situation is signifcantly different this time around: “It went well and we finally won the FA Cup. This year we have the possibility to do it again. There’s less pressure this year but we really want to do well and to confirm we are a team with a lot of quality.”
However, Flamini warned that Arsenal must be wary ahead of a shock loss on Saturday night: “It’s never easy to win a final.”
With this weekend’s final being Mathieu Debuchy’s first, the Frenchman likened it to the French Cup: “The [competitions] have a lot of things in common; every game is extremely difficult in the cup.
“In France, often small teams manage to go very far in the competition, even reach the final. We’ve seen it recently.”
In 2014, En Avant de Guingamp beat Stade Rennais 2-0, these exact two teams met in the 2009 final with Guingamp winning 2-1, this being the last occasion an underdog went all the way in France. Evian TG and US Quevily both made it to finals since 2010, again showing the unpredictable nature in a cup competition like the Coupe de France.
Wigan are the last underdog team to win the FA Cup final in England, beating Manchester City and the following year made it to the semi-final before being knocked out by eventual winners Arsenal.
