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The fifth round of the FA Cup will get over on Monday night with only one fixture between Nottingham Forest and Ipswich town yet to be played. All the other seven teams proceeding to the quarter-finals have been decided and this includes former Premier League champions Manchester City. The City manager Pep Guardiola had something to say about the footballs used in the FA Cup competition after their 3-1 win over Plymouth Argyle.
Speaking after the match, Pep Guardiola complained about the quality of the football not being right. He said, “The ball is not proper, I’m sorry but for many years it hasn’t been in the FA Cup and the Carabao Cup.” It is to be noted that both of these competitions are domestic trophies in the English football calendar.
Guardiola also mentioned that he isn’t the only manager to publicly complain about this. "For many years, many managers and players have said about it and when you’re losing it’s about you’re complaining.” said Guardiola.
Not the first complaint about the balls used in these competitions
As Guardiola rightly said this isn’t the first time such a complaint has been heard. In fact in 2017, it was the CIty manager himself who pointed out about the quality of footballs being used in these competitions. In 2017, when Man City defeated Wolves in a penalty shoot-out to progress to the quarter-finals, Guardiola had said that the Mitre company ball used was unacceptable for a high-level competition. He described how it was too light and moved all over the place.
Mikel Arteta, who was a member of Guardiola’s coaching staff at Man City in 2017 and is the current manager for Arsenal also voiced a similar concern in the initial months of this year. Arteta spoke about how the ball used in the Carabao Cup was different and difficult to adapt to after his team were knocked out of the competition in the semi-finals by Newcastle.
