Manchester United missed the chances, and Arsenal went home with the trophy.
Patrick Vieira scored the deciding penalty Saturday to help Arsenal capture its 10th FA Cup title -- the first to be decided in a shootout in the 124th final of soccer's oldest cup competition.
The Gunners won the penalty shootout 5-4 after the two teams played 120 minutes of scoreless but one-sided soccer. Manchester United should have won its record 12th FA Cup comfortably.
PHOTO: AP
"We were fortunate," Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said after his team's third FA Cup final triumph in five years. "I thought Man United created four great chances and they played well. We won it with our mental strength and resilience rather than the usual style."
Paul Scholes and Ruud van Nistelrooy each headed over the Arsenal crossbar from close range and Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo fired shot after shot at the Gunners goal.
In the first 90 minutes of the game, Manchester United had eight shots on target while Arsenal had none.
Manchester United goalkeeper Roy Carroll had only one save to make, fisting away a bending free kick from Robin van Persie early in extra time.
Wenger has now won four FA Cups in seven years with the Gunners. Arsenal also lost to Liverpool in the 2001 final.
"The one we played best in we lost," Wenger said. "But it's important to go back with the trophy even though we could have played better."
For Manchester United and its huge army of fans, nothing went right. Although the Reds have won the famous trophy 11 times, they have never managed to hold on to it.
"In the cup you need a wee break and we didn't get it," said Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, who was chasing his sixth FA Cup triumph with the club.
"I thought my team played very well. I thought we played some great football and created a lot of chances. When Van Nistelrooy missed near the end, at that point I thought it wasn't going to be our day."
Ferguson was more upset that Arsenal captain Vieira was not sent off. He received one yellow card in a typically robust performance in midfield.
"The referee could have maybe sent off Vieira but Patrick has some kind of immunity from those kind of things," Ferguson said.
Instead, Vieira stepped up to take the vital penalty kick with the shootout score at 4-4, confidently driving his shot into the top corner and out of the reach of Carroll.
The converted penalty sparked celebrations on the field and among the Arsenal followers. Only a few Manchester United fans stayed behind to see their players collect their runners-up medals.
In the shootout, Paul Scholes had the only miss when he had a chance to give United a 2-1 lead. Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann dived to his right to stop his shot.
Van Nistelrooy, Ronaldo, Rooney and Roy Keane scored for Manchester United, while Arsenal also got shootout goals from Lauren, Fredrik Ljungberg, Van Persie and Ashley Cole.
Dundee was relegated from the Scottish Premier League after a 1-1 draw at Livingston.
Dundee needed to win its final match of the season to avoid demotion and led through Calum McDonald after 18 minutes. Craig Easton leveled for Livi eight minutes later.
Dundee finished last with 33 points from 38 matches. Falkirk will take its place in the Scottish Premier League next season after winning the First Division title on May 6.
Only the bottom six clubs played Saturday. For the final five rounds, the top six clubs play each other once, as do the bottom six.
Kilmarnock finished seventh after a 4-0 win over Dunfermline.
Dundee United beat Inverness Caledonian Thistle 1-0.
Inverness finished eighth with 44 points, followed by Dundee United with 36, Livingston with 35, and Dunfermline with 34.
Predrag Djordjevic scored two goals and Rivaldo got the other to lift Olympiakos Piraeus to the Greek Cup title after beating Aris Thessaloniki 3-0.
The game was marred by pre-match clashes outside the stadium between rival fans. Police said several shops and cars were damaged but no injuries were reported. Three fans were arrested, police said.
Olympiakos charged forward from kickoff, nearly scoring in the 12th minute when a blistering free kick by Yiannis Taralidis forced Aris goalkeeper Vangelis Pourliotopoulos to punch away the ball.
Olympiakos can pull off the double by winning the first division title if it beats Iraklis Thessaloniki on Wednesday in the league's final round. Olympiakos is one point ahead of rival and defending champion Panathinaikos.
The suspected ringleader of Germany's match-fixing scandal told prosecutors 10 more players and two more matches were involved in the scandal. The man, officially identified only as Ante S., was arrested in January and taken into custody, along with his two brothers, Milan S. and Filip S.
Berlin daily Tagesspiegel reported Saturday that Ante S. named players from three third division teams in an East German regional league -- Chemnitzer FC, Sachsen Leipzig and Dynamo Dresden.
Both games, in 1994, involved those teams, Tagesspiegel said.
Ante S. and his two brothers are said to have run a betting ring and bribed soccer referees to fix games.
Four referees and 14 players had been suspected of being among 25 people who fixed at least 10 games, mostly in lower divisions.
Berlin prosecutors have reported the Croatian has "admitted the accusations against him," and provided evidence without releasing details.
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