What it's like to watch your son win the FA Cup – by Chris Richards' parents

New York Times

24-05-2025

Almost a week has passed since Carrie Richards watched her son climb the Wembley steps to be greeted by Prince William, and raise the FA Cup with his victorious Crystal Palace team-mates.
The rush of adrenaline will take some time yet to subside. So, too, will the beaming pride felt by Carrie and her husband, Ken. They flew in from Birmingham, Alabama, to see their son, the 25-year-old USMNT defender Chris Richards, become only the third American to win the FA Cup — as part of the Palace team that defeated Pep Guardiola's Manchester City.
Advertisement
Matt Turner, the national team's goalkeeper, also received a winner's medal, albeit he was an unused substitute on the day.
'Saturday was the most surreal experience of my life,' Carrie grins, speaking on a video call with The Athletic from the family home. 'Seeing the fans walking down Wembley Way… I have never seen anything like it. The stadium was electric. My heart was beating. If I had worn my Apple watch, it probably would have told me I needed to go to the emergency room, from the moment we got there to the moment we left.'
The game itself was a nerve-shredding, nail-eviscerating experience.
Palace had never won a major trophy in their history. This was City's 14th appearance in an FA Cup final and they had won two of the previous six editions of the tournament. For Palace to win demanded extreme commitment, the players stretching every last sinew in red and blue. It needed supreme organisation, a splash of quality and also a little fortune.
Palace scored the game's only goal via their talismanic attacking midfielder Eberechi Eze, but also survived a red card review against their goalkeeper, Dean Henderson. He subsequently saved a penalty.
Carrie says: 'Even if we'd been two or three ahead, I don't I think I would have felt any more comfortable! A few weeks back, we were 2-0 up against City and we still lost 5-2 (in the Premier League fixture).'
Even after Palace survived 90 minutes of ordinary time, the fourth official's board indicated 10 additional minutes for stoppages. Ken and Carrie blow out their cheeks. 'We were counting down every last second,' she says. 'I remember seeing we were down to three minutes, but there wasn't a second where I was like, 'OK, I can breathe now!' until he blew the final whistle.'
That was the starting pistol for an explosion of joy and abandon. Carrie, who was seated with the families of the Palace players, says: 'Everyone was in tears. Everyone was hugging…'
Advertisement
'High-fiving, too,' Ken interjects. 'It was crazy. We were just ecstatic, there were lots of balloons going around.'
The couple took in the scene. Multiple generations of families collapsing into each other on the terraces. Some players appeared to enter a trance; some sinking to their knees, others on their backs, exhausted, while more still embraced joyously. Messages from across the pond flooded into Carrie's inbox. One photograph in particular, of royalty placing the winners' medal around her son's neck, kept coming through.
She says: 'What's funny is all my friends were more impressed with him being greeted by Prince William. They were like, 'Oh my gosh!' Americans are so fascinated with the royal family!'
Richards excelled in the Palace defence, muzzling City superstar Erling Haaland. He made four blocks, 12 clearances and won five duels. Not once did an opponent dribble past him.
Before the game, his parents had sent their usual text messages. Ken says: 'I tell him good luck. Trust your instincts, trust what you see, go out, play and have fun.'
Carrie's message was a little more sentimental. 'I was telling him how proud I was. The coach Oliver Glasner told him this opportunity was not a burden, but a privilege. We just wanted Chris to stay in the moment, be present, enjoy every minute, because we knew or had been told that it could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.'
Carrie and Ken's first pleasant surprise came when arriving at Wembley and seeing their son on the front cover of the match-day programme. As for how the Palace fans feel about him?
'People were walking around with Afro wigs on and American flags,' Carrie laughs. 'A whole group (of fans) were in the section of the stadium chanting 'USA!' That's priceless.'
For the Richards family, this represented a milestone.
Their collective story is one of devotion and sacrifice. Unseen to the ordinary fan is how families share in the emotional rollercoaster of professional soccer; matchday at the highest level can test emotions, but the journey to the summit requires patience, empathy and no little resilience.
Advertisement
Richards was born into a comfortable household. His mum worked in a managerial paralegal-type role in a law firm, while his dad owned a moving transportation company that helped people with house moves. But when the economy crashed in 2009, and far fewer people moved home, the business went under.
'We lost everything,' Carrie says. 'We had to start completely over, from doing very well before to having absolutely nothing. We were definitely pinching pennies every week. I can remember one time even Chris getting in from practice and him handing me a letter that said if we didn't pay his soccer fees, then he wouldn't get to play that next week.
'I was so embarrassed. We were just robbing Peter to pay Paul every week.'
In the United States, life as a soccer parent can be exorbitantly expensive. Carrie and Ken say that Chris would often have games either out of state, or far enough away to require a hotel stay. He had two younger siblings who also required attention. 'We were an average family and we were struggling to pay it,' Carrie says.
Trips out of town would cost at least $500 for a weekend. Carrie or Ken would often volunteer the passenger van for the team, because that was a way to have the cost of a hotel covered.
'There was another player whose parents could never go, so they would split the hotel costs with us and they would stay in our room,' she says. 'I don't think him quitting was ever a question. For us, it was always just, 'How are we going to do it?' rather than, 'Will we do it?'.'
The family lived in Hoover, Alabama, around 10 miles south of Birmingham. A place where football is king — Hoover High School has 13 state titles — and soccer is seen as a curiosity. 'Soccer here is probably the fifth most popular sport,' says Carrie. 'It is only now (after the final) some people around us are starting to say, 'Oh, now I understand what Chris achieved because he's on the news'.
Advertisement
'A few weeks ago, somebody asked me what I was going to London for. I said: 'Oh, my son plays soccer in England'. And they're like, 'Oh he doesn't want to play in the United States?'. So I think there's still a lot of people around here just don't understand the magnitude of playing in the Premier League.
'They're like, 'Oh, you're going all the way to the UK for a game?'. Yes, the FA Cup is the oldest tournament in history! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.'
USA 🇺🇸 #CPFC pic.twitter.com/SGMtGrwuGJ
— Crystal Palace F.C. (@CPFC) May 17, 2025
On Richards' arms, he has tattoos of heroes including Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali and Barack Obama, but his first tattoo, written in Roman numerals, is the date he left home shortly after turning 16.
He had not long been cut by FC Dallas when he was offered a place at U.S. Soccer Academy Development club Houston Texans SC. This was a step down to move forwards, playing in a non-MLS academy 10 hours from home.
Chris, his mum admits, was 'devastated' when Dallas let him go.
Ken says, 'I'm a little old school and I felt like he would do one of two things: he would give up or use it as fuel to push him on. That's exactly what he did. Sometimes it's good to have a little disappointment. It built a resilience which helped him as he left home and especially when he later moved to Europe.'
For both parents, letting their eldest boy fly the nest was a wrench. Houston found him a host family, the Eastons, who met Carrie and Ken once before taking in their son. They remain in touch to this day and describe the family as 'just amazing'.
'We were thinking that we have two more years to prepare him for life — to learn how to cook, how to make a doctor's appointment,' says Carrie. 'He moved 10 hours away to a family that we'd barely met in a city that we've never been to. We were praying for the best.
Advertisement
'But he was saying: 'We've got to do this'. So, OK, I've got to get on board. It was heart wrenching.
'I cried every day for God knows how long. Every time we went to see him, I would cry when we left. He didn't even have his driver's licence yet. Our other son Christian was two, just a little baby, and he was missing his big brother. It was almost like he'd gone to college two years early. We mentally weren't ready for that.'
Ken smiles. 'And there were so many people, family and friends, in our ears, saying, 'Are you guys going to let them go? You guys are crazy. This is the worst idea you could have!',' he says.
Carrie continues, 'We were second guessing ourselves, asking: 'Is this the dumbest thing we've ever done?'.'
It turned out to be the opposite.
Richards grew in height and quality while in Houston and his team racked up a string of impressive wins, including against the team who had released him. Dallas then invited him back and, after trials at Borussia Dortmund and Hoffenheim, he was signed by Bayern Munich just as he turned 18.
There were a handful of appearances for Bayern's first team, as well as loan spells at Hoffenheim, before Palace spent an initial €12million (£10m; $13.5m) on Richards in the summer of 2022. This campaign has been his best yet, starting 28 games in Glasner's exciting Palace team, particularly coming to the fore in a second half of the season in which Palace have shot up the Premier League table and claimed the FA Cup.
'It was very moving at the final to see how much it meant to the people of south London — for him to be a part of something that's so historic,' says Ken. 'He'll forever be a part of that. Maybe 100 years from now, it'll be maybe a trivia question: 'Who's the American centre-back when we won our first FA Cup?'.'
After the game, there was time for hugs, drinks and photographs at the nearby Boxpark, both with his parents and his girlfriend, who recently gave birth for the first time. His siblings watched from home, with his sister Mackenzie studying at college and younger brother Christian still at school. They sent explanations from across the pond when Carrie and Ken were trying to understand, amid little in-stadium communication, why the game had been delayed for a VAR review of Henderson's handball outside the penalty area.
Advertisement
But enough about Chris the footballer. What does Chris the person mean to his parents?
Ken pauses, his eyes moistening. 'He's such a good person. Everybody thinks highly of their kids but he really is a great person who cares about other people. He's very humble, very considerate…'
Carrie jumps in: 'He has a really good sense of humor.'
Ken nods: 'Yes, he's funny. There are so many adjectives I can use, but he's special.'
Carrie says: 'He would do anything for either of us, for his siblings. He's loyal to the friends he grew up with.'
As parents of an American soccer player, the next year brings excitement, with a home World Cup on the horizon in the summer of 2026.
'He was injured right before the World Cup in Qatar,' Carrie adds. 'Since we had already taken off the time to go to the World Cup, we decided to go over and spend that time with him, because he was not in a good place emotionally at all. So we made sure we were there for him.
'When he was a little boy, he always had these little sticky notes on his mirror: he wants to achieve this or he wants to achieve that. Playing in the World Cup was one one of these. We would be so incredibly proud.'