Marc Guehi has lived two of the FA Cup’s sharpest turns in the space of a few months. A year ago, he captained Crystal Palace to the first major trophy in the club’s 120-year history. This Saturday, he is set to start Manchester City’s fourth consecutive FA Cup final.
That route has made his season feel almost impossible to script. Guehi said his football life was “just crazy,” adding that there was “no consistency to it” and that it was “quite fun.” It has also carried the oddity of one competition producing both triumph and embarrassment for the same player, with Palace’s January exit to sixth-tier Macclesfield and the later move to City sitting side by side in the same story.
Palace’s defeat was brutal enough on its own. Macclesfield were 117 places below them in the football pyramid when they won, and it left Guehi in the middle of a result that cut deep at the club he had just led to glory. He later said he felt he owed the fans, “not an explanation,” but at least the chance for their voices “to be heard because they’re such a big part of football.” He added that “in that moment, it was low for them, but that’s just another part of life, I guess.”
Nine days after Palace were knocked out in January, Guehi joined Manchester City. For the first time, players eliminated from the FA Cup with one club were allowed to play in the competition for another club after a rule change, and he has moved through that opening with barely any pause. He left Palace as the most decorated captain in the club’s history, and his new role has placed him into another final that could put him alongside Brian Talbot and Olivier Giroud as players who won consecutive FA Cup finals for different clubs.
The backdrop to all of this is the modern shape of the competition itself. Palace’s run to the title a year ago had already written a new line in the club’s history, and Guehi’s place in it was secure. Yet the same FA Cup campaign now also includes a shock loss to a non-league side and the chance of another medal in a different shirt. That makes his path unusual even by football standards, and it explains why his part in the 2025 final was the subject of jokes when he arrived at City.
His recent form has not made the picture any tidier. Last week, Guehi’s under-hit back pass at Everton gifted Thierno Barry a goal and had a direct effect on the Premier League title race. He had already said he knew how much it meant to win trophies, especially the FA Cup, with its history and its record-breaking place in the game. That feeling now sits beside a record of two consecutive defeats, a title-winning medal from Palace, and silver medals in the hands of the Manchester City players he has joined.
What comes next is straightforward, even if the path to get there has not been. Guehi is set to start in another FA Cup final, and he can still leave this run with another piece of history attached to his name. For a defender whose season has already moved from Palace captain to City starter in nine days, that may be the one detail that makes the whole story feel almost normal.
