Manchester City win the FA Cup at the expense of their neighbours United.

 Manchester City win the FA Cup at the expense of their neighbours United.

It's funny how things always seem to work out for the best. Manchester City may well have won the FA Cup but United have also achieved their personal objective this season. It could all have been so different had Manchester United decided to persevere with the respective managerial expertise of Louis Van Gaal or the deeply offensive Jose Mourinho. In a sense this was a moral victory for United since only the wildly optimistic among us could have confidently predicted that United would win anything this season. But then United claimed the Carabao Cup and all was well at Old Trafford.

And yet at three o' clock on a Saturday afternoon it came to pass that an FA Cup Final began and the traditionalists smiled warmly as if a certain justice had been done. Time was when everything about the compelling spectacle that is an FA Cup Final would take top billing, when Abide With Me was the most uplifting anthem before the game itself, banners and flags would be proudly emblazoned across the light green grass of the old Wembley towers and an FA Cup Final would become a metaphor for everything that was good  about the game.

The first all derby Manchester FA Cup Final in all its splendour and glory, eventually took a predictable route and when Pep Guardiola, City's always diplomatic manager, stared across this vast and spacious stadium he must have thought life could hardly get any better. Now Guardiola finds himself on the threshold of a stunning achievement, one that noisy neighbours Manchester United thought they had a monopoly on for ever. The Treble is now blissfully attainable and only Inter Milan stand between City and a hat-trick of trophies for the team from the Etihad Stadium.

This Saturday Manchester City face Inter Milan in the Champions League Final and for Teddy Sheringham, Roy Keane and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, read Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and Jack Grealish for today's Manchester City. In 1999 Solskjaer was the one man responsible for Manchester United's winner on what proved to be United's finest of all nights, European Cup victory against Bayern Munich with almost the last kick of the evening.

First things first though. This was the first all Manchester derby FA Cup Final and therefore the most eagerly anticipated since both United and City had booked their place at Wembley. But who on earth could have imagined that the game itself would begin in such dramatic and explosive style? After a record breaking 12 seconds of the kick off, City would launch their opening assault on the United goal. From Stefan Ortega's long goal kick the ball fell kindly from a header and flick that landed so invitingly at the feet of Ilkay Gundogan, City's tormentor in chief all afternoon that even he must have been pleasantly surprised.

In 2009 Louis Saha had scored Everton's opening goal against Chelsea in that year's FA Cup Final. 25 seconds had elapsed for that goal to be acknowledged in the Cup's very literary pages of history. For Gundogan this was a goal unlike any he will probably score at any point in his career. The German playmaker just lifted his leg and then with the smoothest trajectory, blasted quite the most astonishing volley that whistled past David De Gea for City's opening goal.

United looked shell shocked, faces aghast, clearly disbelieving the evidence of their eyes. So they gathered their thoughts and senses, tried to remember where they were, convinced that this was a bolt from the blue they could never have bargained for. The majestic Casemiro, a Brazilian ball playing artist, waved United forward, while the cultured likes of Christian Eriksen, an experienced veteran was still capable of  bringing tranquillity to chaos. Then the excellent Bruno Fernandes, always a man for all seasons at United, picked up the ball as if United had just been reunited with it.

Slowly but surely they rallied and recovered and once the ball became their exclusive property, United were showing signs of  life. The passes were singing together, movement and rotation of the ball something that had now become longed for since the first whistle. On the bench Eric Ten Haag, United's clever and thoughtful boss, looked on anxiously but still privately hopeful that the tide would turn in their favour. Ten Haag has transformed United's fortunes this season and although the Red Devils will have to content themselves with the Carabao Cup and third place in the Premier League, you felt as if Manchester United were still a work in progress.

For a minute or two you remembered that iconic moment when City beat Gillingham in a Second Division play off final at Wembley when the boys from the Etihad were lost in a desolate wilderness. A Champions League final may well have greeted with derisory laughter at the time but now Manchester City are just unstoppable, a passing masterclass for all occasions and completely transformed. It all seems as if City have been through a genuine revolution, a cultural shift that none of us could have foreseen.

But on Saturday afternoon United began to feel their way into the match after an electric shock to the system. Their football now had accuracy, structure, distinctive thought patterns, a rounded personality, purpose and precision. Suddenly Casemiro, Fred, Bruno Fernandes, Victor Lindelof and the supremely confident Jadon Sancho, Raphael Varane and Luke Shaw were all united, collegiate, spirited, quite literally patient, cohesive, and the model of fluency. There was something very real about United, a side back in control.

Then completely against the run of play United found a way back into the match. After United had worked themselves into a lather with a series of well constructed attacks and counter attacks, the Cup  was beginning to show signs of leniency. United were now left off the hook. A rare attack into the City half ended up in the light blue half of City's penalty area. It was almost as if time had stopped for a minute or two but for United it was a way back into the game.

 Jack Grealish, one of England's most influential players since the heady days of Paul Gascoigne, tussled with his United counterpart. The ball reared up in front of Grealish's hands but nowhere even remotely close to an infringement. Much to everybody's amazement, the ball had clipped Grealish's fingernails by complete accident. After VAR deliberation, the referee drew that familiar square in the air and a penalty it was. United were level quite unexpectedly and surprisingly. Surely an equaliser had come completely against the run of play.

In the second half City came out of the starting blocks as if somebody had electrified them into action. The ball travelled from light blue feet to feet with whirlwind speed and perfect execution. Now both Grealish, De Bruyne, Rodrigo, Bernardo Silva at his foraging best, Manuel Akaji forced the pace of the match with sweetly flowing combinations within close proximity of each other. There was a technical excellence and purity about City's passing game that the Premier League has been so accustomed to for the last nine months or so.

Inevitably something had to give and it did. United had been lulled into a false sense of security and had been chloroformed by City. Following another City corner, the ball floated over towards the far side of the penalty area. The ball once again fell conveniently at the feet of Ilkay Gundogan once again. In an almost identical re-run to City's opening goal Gundogan adjusted his feet and position. This time he drove the ball low and hard into the ground on the volley, the ball bobbling over David De Gea, the hapless United keeper and into the net.

And that's how the score remained. Despite gallant attempts by Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, this was not the day Manchester United were hoping for. Up in the royal box Sir Alex Ferguson looked distinctly ill at ease, awkward and slightly self conscious. When United levelled the game Ferguson's face temporarily perked up and, underneath Ferguson, Sir David Beckham, the former Manchester United idol threw his hands into the air with delight when United thought they had City where they wanted them. But footballing royalty would have to be overlooked on this occasion and even Sir Alex would have to accept defeat graciously.

When the final whistle went Pep Guardiola's face seemed to explode into smiles and and an expression of happiness that you would have been hard pressed to find anywhere in football. City were just beside themselves and the joy was almost spiritual. The players danced around the pitch, hugging each other tightly and then strolling around Wembley as if they'd undergone a religious conversion. Then City lifted the FA Cup for the seventh time in their history and all tension had been released. You began to understand just how much the FA Cup means to so many around the world. The emotion was universal, indefinable, the kind of feeling you get when everything goes your way.