Fulham’s 2-0 defeat to Crawley back in August 2022 has been relegated to an insignificant footnote in Marco Silva's phenomenal four seasons in charge.
But for our gaffer, that forgettable night in West Sussex proved a key turning point, helping yield a success rate in cup competitions that has seen us reach the latter stages in recent years.
Today’s 2-1 win away at Wigan sealed our place in the FA Cup Round of 16, with ambitions now markedly higher for the Whites.
“We had a really bad evening in the Carabao Cup when we were knocked out,” Marco explained. “That was a changing moment for us.
“It was a moment for us to completely change the mentality, the way we see any competition that we are playing in for the club. And from that moment, it’s been a serious approach.
“I know that sometimes I take risks, like I took this afternoon. To change ten players is not an easy thing to do, but some players deserve the chance.
“We aim really high. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing against, we’re going to do our best to go as far as we can. Of course, all clubs want to go far in this competition and we want to fight for it.”
Fulham had to dig deep to overcome their League One opponents, who had cancelled out Rodrigo Muniz’s opener before the Brazilian forward scored his second.
“I think we showed enough quality to be in the next stage. From the first minute, even with ten changes, I think we showed our patterns and our identity on the pitch.
“In these types of games, it's always important to score the second goal as early as you can. We didn't, but I think we controlled the game well on the ball and we had a good reaction when we lost it.”
Muniz is on a hot streak with three goals in two games, and also scored in Fulham’s previous cup tie, a 4-1 win against Watford.
“It's a great competition between him and Raul (Jimenez), definitely. It's always good when you have two strikers that have been scoring goals, and important goals for us.
“When you have a chance to start the game like Rodrigo got this afternoon, you have to step in and he did it.
“He's really strong inside the box. I'm really pleased for the second goal because it's something we've been working on with him, those types of runs.”