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Diogo Jota hopes Liverpool’s firepower helps them to  FA Cup glory

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The Portuguese forward has been an impressive performer for Jurgen Klopp’s men in his debut season at Anfield, after a move from Wolverhampton Wanderers last summer.

And he’s now hoping to live out a childhood dream by lifting the famous trophy in what is the competition’s 150th anniversary season.

Growing up in Portugal, did you watch the Emirates FA Cup Final on TV?

Yes, in Portugal everyone loves English football pretty much like everyone else all over the world. Seeing those games meant that for a lot of young players like me, it was always a target to reach the Premier League and also play in the FA Cup. It’s probably the most important club cup competition in the world. It’s not every year that you reach the Final and we have a great chance to win it. And when the day arrives, we’ll go with everything we have to do that. 

You’ve played Chelsea three times this season and every game was all-square after 90 minutes. Are you expecting another tight contest on Saturday?

I think so. They are a very tough team to play against with the three centre-backs, and they defend really well. They’re one of the hardest teams to score against and they are very good offensively as well. They’ve been a really good team since Thomas Tuchel arrived so it’s not going to be easy. It’s another big game but we are used to that. I think it will be a very good match for all the fans to watch.

Yourself, Mo Salah and Sadio Mane have all scored 20 or more goals this season, only the third time in the club’s history three different players have achieved that feat in the same campaign. With such firepower you must be confident that you can score in any game?

Yes, I think it’s very rare when we don’t score. But I think that’s down to the work of all of the team. Everyone works hard to score goals. Obviously, the ones upfront always have more chances to do it but we know that the way we play we can score goals throughout the team. For example, we saw Ibou Konate score an important goal to open the scoring in the semi-final against City. We always leave a lot of space behind our backline but we have the team and the centre-backs to cover the space, so we try to press every team as much as possible and of course being on the top level in terms of physicality is an important part of that.

The Emirates FA Cup is the only major trophy Jurgen Klopp has not won since he came to Liverpool, so victory in the final would be very special?

I think it was the first time he won the EFL Cup earlier this year, so maybe this season could be a one for everyone to remember for a while. Like I say, it’s a tight margin of being able to win something else and not being able to win anything more. But we have a big squad with a lot of quality and I believe that we can do it.

-The FA

 

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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