Pep Guardiola has had a long and passionate love affair with Wembley Stadium, winning the Champions League as a player and manager there with Barcelona, as well as four League Cups and two FA Cups with Manchester City. A third FA Cup really should have followed on Saturday, too.
However, the serial-winning coach underestimated Crystal Palace in the final with a naive starting line up that overlooked the midfield, the area of the pitch Guardiola used to value more than any other. He paid a heavy price for his oversight, losing a second consecutive cup final as Palace edged out City 1-0 to lift their first-ever major trophy. Guardiola is now set to finish a season without lifting major silverware for only the second time in his coaching career, and for the first time since his first year in England back in 2017.
Guardiola was missing Mateo Kovacic and of course Rodri, but he still had Ilkay Gundogan and Nico Gonzalez available, plus Rico Lewis and James McAtee, neither of whom made the bench. Instead he chose to field Bernardo Silva and Kevin De Bruyne as holding midfielders, which was no way to treat the legendary playmaker in his last final in a blue shirt.
Ahead of them was a glittering cast of forwards in Omar Marmoush, Savinho, Jeremy Doku and Erling Haaland, but they all failed to score - and that was despite being awarded a penalty which Haaland mistakenly let Marmoush take before man of the moment Dean Henderson got the better of the Egyptian from the spot to preserve Palace's narrow advantage after Eberechi Eze had given them the lead with their first foray forward.
Henderson also played his role in the most controversial incident of a match that had it all, and likely breathed new life into the sport's oldest competition, showing that hard-working and humble teams can still have their day of glory.
GOAL breaks down the winners and losers from Wembley Stadium...