They were the bizarre stories which, even years after they first played out, make you ask the question: did that really happen?
From the Madagascan top-flight fixture settled with 149 own goals and the craze for footballers ‘curing’ themselves with horse placenta, _The Athletic _will recall some of the most bizarre stories in recent soccer history.
In the sixth of our 10-part series, Liam Twomey revisits the infamous tete-a-tete between theChelsea goalkeeper and his head coach that provided the overriding memory of the 2019 Carabao Cup final.
Choosing which players are on the pitch at any given time is the most elemental form of coaching authority, and that is why Maurizio Sarri will always be best remembered in England for the surreal sequence of events that transpired in the final minute of extra time in the 2019 Carabao Cup final.
Penalties were looming at Wembley Stadium between Chelsea and Manchester City when Kepa Arrizabalaga, the world’s most expensive goalkeeper signed at Sarri’s behest to replace Thibaut Courtois seven months earlier, stayed down after diving to his left to smother a low shot by Sergio Aguero. The Spaniard signalled for medical attention as he grimaced and clutched at his left leg.
Kepa had carried a slight hamstring injury into the game, and this was the second time in 120 goalless minutes that he had requested treatment. No eyebrows were raised when Sarri instructed substitute goalkeeper Willy Caballero to get himself stripped and ready to come on while Chelsea medics ran to attend to Kepa.
The unexpected drama of what happened next overshadowed even the trophy at stake.
Sarri checked his watch as he walked back from his dugout to the touchline, then looked at Kepa and rolled his hands to motion for a substitution. Chelsea’s starting goalkeeper, back on his feet, responded with an escalating cascade of “No!” shouts, punctuated by an emphatic thumbs-up gesture that quickly became a frustrated wag of the finger, then a dismissive wave of the arm.
Kepa glances to the bench as Sarri tries to substitute him (Photo: John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images)
Sarri walked back to his seat on the bench and scribbled on his notepad as assistant Gianfranco Zola, wide eyed with surprise, beckoned to Kepa to come off. On the pitch, Chelsea defender David Luiz, covering his mouth, put an arm around his animated team-mate and delivered a message of his own.
“I just said to him we have to respect the decision of the coach,” David Luiz explained later.
Kepa gave another thumbs up.
“Hey! Come on!,” Zola yelled as he walked to the touchline, where Caballero stood staring at the ground and awkwardly fidgeting with his gloves next to the fourth official. Sarri looked up from his pad and, seemingly shocked to see his starting goalkeeper had not moved, began to rant at those around him on the bench.
Kepa attempts to make his point as David Luiz intervenes (Photo: Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Getty Images)
David Luiz went back to Kepa with a hand over his mouth, this time flanked by referee Jonathan Moss. After a brief exchange, Moss jogged over to convene with Sarri and Zola on the touchline. It was Chelsea’s head coach who ultimately scrapped the substitution, communicated by Moss turning back towards Kepa and sweeping his arms as if disallowing a goal.
Sarri’s fury erupted as he walked back to the bench.
Yanking down the zip on his tracksuit jacket, he screamed and gesticulated wildly as substitutes Willian, Olivier Giroud and Ross Barkley stared at him in shock. Then he veered off and strode towards the tunnel, a crowd parting for him as he reached the door leading to the dressing rooms before turning back towards the pitch. For a few seconds, it seemed possible he might leave the stadium.
Sarri makes his disgust clear as Zola watches on (Photo: Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
Penalties arrived shortly afterwards and, as Chelsea readied themselves on the pitch, centre-back Antonio Rudiger had to restrain a still irate Sarri from confronting Kepa. The Spaniard toyed with villain and hero status in the shootout, allowing a tame Aguero effort to squirm through his hands before saving superbly from Leroy Sane.
City won 4-3 on penalties, courtesy of Jorginho and David Luiz misses, but in the immediate aftermath it felt as if Chelsea had lost far more than a cup final.
How could Sarri continue with his authority so publicly undermined, and how could Kepa — at that time the club’s record signing — recover from such spectacular insubordination?
Recognising the magnitude of the moment, Chelsea scrambled into damage control mode.
Kepa was hastily made available to a huddle of journalists in the bowels of Wembley and explained his actions. It was, he insisted, all a big misunderstanding. He had simply been attempting to tell Sarri that he was fit enough to continue and that no substitution was needed. “It wasn’t my intention to go against the manager,” he added.
Sarri put forward the same story in his post-match press conference.
“I understood he had cramp, so I didn’t want the goalkeeper to go to the penalties in that physical condition,” he said. “I realised the situation after three or four minutes when the doctor arrived on the bench. I wanted Caballero on the pitch, but Kepa wanted to let me know he was in condition to go to the penalties.
“It was only a big misunderstanding. Kepa was right, but in the wrong way.”
Kepa despairs as the penalty shootout veers towards City (Photo: Tom Jenkins via Getty Images)
The problem was that Sarri’s furious reaction in the moment jarred with the idea of a coach simply concerned about a player’s physical condition. In an interview with the Daily Mail in February this year, the Italian’s long-time goalkeeping coach Massimo Nenci confirmed the real reason for the substitution was tactical.
“Maurizio thought we should substitute Kepa with Caballero, because Caballero is a big penalty saver, and against City (his former club) he would have been perfect for us,” Nenci said.
But no one had told Kepa this might happen, meaning he understandably assumed Sarri’s decision was simply prompted by the belief he was injured. “When he recognised his mistake he cried, he cried (in the dressing room),” Nenci added. “He is a very good guy. He was saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t understand’.”
Ultimately the incident did not prove terminal for either man.
😳 – Have you EVER seen anything like it!?
Maurizio Sarri tries to substitute Kepa Arrizabalaga for Willy Caballero, but Kepa refuses to come off and Sarri is absolutely FURIOUS! 😡 pic.twitter.com/Q81v6ry3Kk
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) February 24, 2019
Kepa was fined a week’s wages and dropped for the next match, at home to Tottenham, but came back into the team the following weekend. Sarri saw out that season at Chelsea, finishing third in the Premier League and winning the Europa League — with Kepa producing heroics in a semi-final penalty shootout victory over Eintracht Frankfurt at Stamford Bridge.
Kepa faced greater career adversity in the years that followed, before enjoying a moment of peculiarly poetic redemption when then-Chelsea coach Thomas Tuchel brought him on as a tactical substitute for Edouard Mendy to beat Villarreal on penalties in the UEFA Super Cup in August 2021. The same trick did not work quite so well against Liverpool back in the Carabao Cup final later that season.
Time has dulled its significance, but Sarri and Kepa’s aborted substitution remains by far the most memorable moment of a forgettable cup final; a perfect storm of circumstances that are very unlikely to ever align in the same way again.
GO DEEPER
Kepa’s form has been a rare positive in Chelsea’s bad season - but how sustainable is it?
(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Sean Reilly)
To read other pieces in our ‘Did That Really Happen?’ series, click on the links below
- The game that finished 149-0
- Disabled ‘karma’ row costs an England manager his job
- How Hawkeye saved Aston Villa
- When Arsenal offered Sheffield United a cup replay
- Why Barbados scored a deliberate own goal – to win a match
