Nemanja Matic scored a world-class goal against Tottenham to make it 4-2 and send Chelsea to the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium.
Tottenham have quickly gained on Chelsea in the Premier League title race after it looked like it was the Blues’ to lose. That’s why the meeting between the two sides in the FA Cup semifinal was significant; people wanted to see how much stock Antonio Conte would put into a potential double.
It seemed as though he was ready to throw this match away when he left Diego Costa and Eden Hazard on the bench. But they ended up putting in an inspired performance, the likes of which we haven’t seen from Chelsea for quite some time. Tottenham showed a lot of fight to come back from 1-0 and 2-1 down, but once Hazard came into the game, he left his mark on the match.
Just moments after scoring the go-ahead goal, Hazard teed up Nemanja Matic who was waiting to strike it from outside the box. The result was one of the most spectacular finishes you’re ever going to see:
Matic is a defensive midfielder, so it’s not like he does this all the time. In fact, that was the first goal he had scored all season long, but it couldn’t have come at a better time. However, as anyone who’s Portuguese can tell you, Matic is capable of scoring world-class goals from time to time.
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This type of result has to be crushing for Tottenham. They’re still in the running for the Premier League, but they have to win every game from here on out while hoping that Chelsea slip up twice. That’s unlikely, which means the FA Cup was their best shot at silverware. But as was the case last year, Chelsea have denied Tottenham a shot at a title.