The Eagles came into this game after defying the odds to beat Brighton & Hove Albion on their own turf in the semi-finals, and after a barren run of 1 win in 10 games as the season drew to a close.
Watford were the clear favourites overall, but a resilient display from the Eagles, including great goalkeeping from Julian Speroni, dragged the clash into extra-time.
As the London sun beat down, manager Ian Holloway explained that he saw a tactical weakness in the Watford defence in the shape of Marco Cassetti. Thankfully, he had just the man to exploit it.
“Just keep taking him [Cassetti] on,'” Holloway told Wilfried Zaha. “‘He’ll get booked or he’ll get sent off.’
“They moved him four times to try and get him away from Wilf. They put him left-back, they put him right-back, they put him sweeper, and I just said: ‘Stay there.’ My lads knew. We just keep feeding Wilf and what happened?”