A year ago, Rafa Benitez was preparing his Liverpool team for the Champions League final. Alan Pardew’s West Ham were playing in the promotion play-offs.
Now they come face-to-face in the FA Cup final.
However, Benitez refuses to accept his team are favourites, even though the Reds finished the season with 11 wins in a row.
”People say we are favourites, but I don’t see it like that,” said the Spaniard, who has won Champions League, Uefa Cup and Spanish league titles and now is in his first FA Cup final. ”In a final it’s 50-50.”
Liverpool and West Ham meet at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, on Saturday in the 125th final of the world’s oldest and most-famous soccer cup competition.
One of English soccer’s traditional powerhouses with a record 18 league titles, Liverpool are chasing their seventh FA Cup triumph and first since 2001. West Ham, who have never won a league title, are bidding for their fourth FA Cup trophy, but the first since 1980.
Benitez’s team won a memorable fifth European Cup title by coming from 3-0 down at half-time against AC Milan last season. Although they never threatened Chelsea in the league title-race this year, third-place Liverpool finished nine points behind the Blues, compared with 37 points behind last season.
West Ham finished sixth in the League Championship last season but came through to beat Preston in the play-off final and regain their place in the top flight.
The Hammers, who finished 10th in the Premier League, will consider themselves almost equal to the Reds.
”We’ve studied Liverpool closely, we know them pretty well and we’ll get that knowledge into the players early,” Pardew said. ”I find it incredible that Rafael Benitez is, apparently, saying that we’re the favourites to win the cup, because we’re up against a technical team who are better than us.
”Liverpool have got more experience and more international players, too. But everyone also knows that we attack teams and that we’ve got a big punch.”
Liverpool will rely on the inspirational and dynamic Steven Gerrard in midfield to provide the chances for 2,05m striker Peter Crouch. They have a rock solid defence with centre-backs Jamie Carragher and Sami Hyypia in front of a reliable goalkeeper.
Robbie Fowler can’t take part in the final because he played in this season’s competition for Manchester City.
Benitez hopes that Spanish midfielder Xabi Alonso recovers from knee-ligament damage he picked up in Sunday’s 3-1 victory at Portsmouth. Alonso missed last season’s League Cup final loss to Chelsea because of a broken ankle.
”The ankle is getting better, although I’m not involved in training at the moment with the rest of the team,” Alonso said.
”I’ve a few days to see if it improves. As for my chances, I don’t know, but I feel confident that I will be fit.
”I hope so, because it would be a nightmare not to be involved. I sat in the stands last season watching the Carling [League] Cup final, so I don’t want to repeat that experience.”
Pardew says that two of his key players, Dean Ashton and Matthew Etherington, may have to play through painful injuries.
The powerfully built Ashton strained a hamstring against West Brom 11 days ago, and Pardew gives the striker a ”60-40” chance of playing Saturday. Winger Etherington is recovering from an ankle injury sustained in training.
For the first time, the cup will be presented to the winning captain by Prince William, who takes over on Saturday as president of the Football Association. — Sapa-AP