Swansea City dashed Bradford
City's dreams at Wembley Stadium
on Sunday, with a record 5-0
victory seeing the Welsh outfit
lift the Capital One Cup. A professional display from the
Premier League side against this
season's surprise package from
League Two saw Nathan Dyer and
Jonathan De Guzman net a brace
apiece and Michu grab his 19th goal of a memorable campaign as
Michael Laudrup's side got their
hands on major silverware for
the first time in their history and
booked a place in the 2013/14
Europa League. After disposing of Wigan, Arsenal
and Aston Villa en route to the
final, Bradford arrived in the
capital full of hope and cheered
on by a partisan travelling
support from West Yorkshire. It did not take long, though, for
Swansea's slick passing game to
take control of proceedings, with
Dyer enjoying early joy down the
right flank as the Bantams
battled bravely but struggled to gain a foothold in the game. Ben Davies nodded the first
opportunity narrowly wide of the
post, as he met an Angel Rangel
cross, but the Swans did find the
back of the net with just 16
minutes on the clock. Matt Duke could only parry a low
drive from Michu and Dyer was in
the right place at the right time
to slide the loose ball home at
the back post. Leon Britton fired a half-volley
wide from 25 yards as Swansea
continued to dominate, before Ki
Sung-Yueng was cautioned for
clattering through Nahki Wells -
who found himself starved of service. Bradford boss Phil Parkinson
would have been looking to get
his side into the dressing room
with just one goal to chase after
the break, but five minutes
before the interval Swansea doubled their lead when Michu
was allowed to spin inside the
box and drill through the legs of
Carl McHugh and into the bottom
corner. Things got even worse for the
Bantams within two minutes of
the re-start, with Dyer able to
exchange passes with Wayne
Routledge, work the ball onto his
left foot and curl past Duke to end the tie as a contest. A thankless task became an
impossible one on 56 minutes,
with Duke shown a straight red
card for tripping De Guzman as
the Holland international skipped
past him inside the box. Dyer pleaded with his colleague
to take the resulting spot kick,
as he eyed up a cup final hat-
trick, but De Guzman refused to
relinquish penalty-taking duty
and confidently stroked past Bradford's back-up goalkeeper
Jon McLaughlin from 12 yards. Bradford, to their credit, refused
to lie down and succumb to a
hammering, while their army of
loyal followers raised the noise
levels inside the national stadium,
but the final half-an-hour saw the fourth tier underdogs in
damage limitation mode. Swansea kept passing and
probing, posing plenty of
questions, and it came as no real
surprise when they added a
record-breaking fifth in a League
Cup final in stoppage-time, with Rangel providing the ammunition
for De Guzman to sweep in his
second of the game.