It didn’t take Wesley Fofana long to discover the Emirates FA Cup’s significance after he arrived in England.
The centre-back had already enjoyed a taste of cup football in his homeland, reaching the Coupe de France final with Saint-Étienne in 2020 and scoring during the run. That was enough to make it a “great” run despite Les Verts eventually succumbing to a 1-0 defeat against Paris Saint-Germain at the hands of a Neymar goal.
Even so, Fofana admits that he thinks “the FA Cup is more important compared to French Cup.”
The Frenchman also took things a step further in terms of results in England, lifting the Emirates FA Cup with Leicester City during his first campaign.
Reminiscing on walking out at Wembley Stadium, he says: “I could see my teammates in Leicester, for them it was very important, and they gave me that feeling. It was amazing because the fans were crazy.”
Having secured the Cup Final win against Chelsea that year, Fofana is now aiming to replicate that success with the Blues this time around.
That would see him join a stellar list of defensively-minded players from Les Bleus making their mark for the Blues from west London in this competition.
Claude Makélélé, N’Golo Kanté, Marcel Desailly, Frank Leboeuf and current France manager Didier Deschamps are all among Fofana’s countrymen who have lifted this trophy with Chelsea.
The 25 year old takes inspiration from those who have come before him. “These are big players, so I watch what they do,” but he also laughs while offering a reminder that, “I’ve won the trophy so I can be an inspiration as well.”
Fofana continues: “For me, it’s very big to try and win the FA Cup. I’ve won it once before and I want to win it with Chelsea, of course, because I came here to win trophies.”
Despite Chelsea being in a tough period outside of the FA Cup, Fofana declares that “we’re ready for the fight” that they will face against Leeds.
“Everyone wants to win games. Everyone wants to win trophies, so everyone is concentrating on that and we’ll try everything for that. Of course, it’s not an easy period, it’s a bit complicated, we’ve lost games, but we need to stay together. We need to stay focused because we have big things coming.”
Speaking about Leeds, he says: “It’s a very tough team. They play very good football, they’re organised.”
“We played against them not long ago at the Bridge and they came back. They’re very strong, so we will try to be ready to win the game and go to the Final.”
Watch Chelsea v Leeds United on Sunday 26 April 2026 at 3pm BST on TNT Sports 1 and HBO Max. Comprehensive radio coverage will be provided by BBC Radio 5 Live, talkSPORT and the local BBC Radio outlets. Read the full interview with Wesley in the official match programme for Sunday's game, available at Wembley or to order online.
