This weekend (Saturday 16 May), Chelsea take on Manchester City in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium in north London. Bringing every moment of the action to viewers will be BBC Sport, which is currently preparing for what should be a spectacular 90 minutes of football.

BBC Sport is packing a lot into its production, from a live edition of Football Focus straight out of the stadium, to an expert presentation team on a platform in the stands throughout the match, digital media crews capturing shots from behind the goals and elsewhere, plus a late-night highlights programme that will go to air after the Eurovision Song Contest ends.

Football Focus finale

Prior to the final, the very last ever Football Focus on the Road from Wembley programme will go to air live from the stadium. Football Focus, which BBC Sport’s lead director on FA Cup coverage and BBC Sport pres director for the final, Sarah Williams, also directs on a regular match day but not this coming Saturday as she will be focusing on match directing, is coming to an end after 52 years. Saturday’s Football Focus will be directed by Graham Bennett.

This weekend’s Football Focus on the Road from Wembley will see Alex Scott and guests live from the stadium for a special show on FA Cup final day, previewing the match between Chelsea and Manchester City and looking ahead to the last days of the season in the Scottish Premiership and the Women’s Super League, along with Sunday’s crucial games in the Premier League.

“Football Focus will be going out from 12pm to 1pm,” says Williams. “For Football Focus we will use a couple of our match cameras. Once Focus is off at 1pm, there’s the news, but then at 1.15pm there is some extra content that we are providing for BBC One and BBC iPlayer as well; Jason Mohammed will be pitchside and he’s going to be doing some links, and there will be some extra features including that he will be joined by a series of guests and we’ll have some VT content including archive action and a penalty shootout guide with Wayne Rooney and Jordan Pickford.

“And then we are on air with Match the Day Live on BBC One from 2pm till 5.40pm.”

Take your places please…

Mark Chapman will be presenting for BBC Sport. He will be joined by three guests: Wayne Rooney, Micah Richards and Daniel Sturridge, the latter who has played for both teams in this weekend’s final.

This year the presenting team for the FA Cup final will be taking their places on a platform in the grandstands pre-match and at half time, rather than pitchside or in a separate studio behind glass, enabling them to tap into the atmosphere generated by the fans.

The reason BBC Sport is going into the stands rather than remaining pitchside is to do with the activities that happen on the pitch prior to kick off, from maintenance to entertainment. As the BBC is ad-free, it does not have the luxury of small breaks where furniture and people can be discreetly moved, and so a platform seemed like the best option.

Setting up on the platforms has posed some spacing challenges for Williams, she explains: “It’s quite tight so I’m a bit limited on what presentation cameras I can have up there. I’ve got three cameras; two of them are manned, but one of them is a locked off ‘three shot’ because there’s just no room for three manned cameras and the lights, and we’ve got a little mini set as well that we’re installing that’s FA Cup branded.

“Post-match we will be pitchside,” continues Williams. “We’ll be fairly close to the tunnel and then the idea is once they’ve done the presentations for the FA Cup winners, the winning manager and maybe a winning player will join us post-match pitchside. Often, depending on who wins, they’ll be some good banter. For example, if it’s Manchester City, Micah Richards, having been a previous Man City player, will have fun; that worked very well last year in terms of post-match content, and also [the digital team] clips up the content and that goes out on all of our social platforms. Those post-match interviews seem to do really well on [social media] when we’re pitchside.”

Cameras everywhere

In addition to the world feed from TNT Sports, BBC Sport will have nine cameras of its own to use. Says Williams: “We have three on the platform and then two of those cameras reposition pitchside post-match. We have an RF steadi cam; that can offer us lots of nice movement so they can operate during the match, and TNT will take that camera as part of their coverage, plus we will use that pre-match for interviews pitchside with our reporter, Kelly Somers, and then post-match we will use that alongside our other two cable cameras in our presentation position.

“We then have another camera, which is for the BBC reporter. That does any of the interviews in the tunnel on the boards. We also have two ISO cameras so we can get player warmups pre-match so that we’re not so heavily reliant on TNT. I will ask the [TNT Sports match] director for ISOs of certain players that we want to take a look at pre-match for our pre-match analysis and ones to watch, but we have one camera on the gantry getting ISOs for us and they’ll also get some ISOs during the match.

“And then we also have a reverse corner ISO camera, which is a super slowmo camera. We also have a com cam [commentary camera], which Alan Shearer is alongside Guy Mobray on the gantry. We use that camera pre-match halftime and post-match to interview Alan Shearer. When that camera isn’t being used as a com cam it will be like an in-match tactical camera, so it’ll reposition [with its operator] to offer us a nice wide shot of all the play once the match kicks off and we can use that for analysis.

“We also have a cinecam, which gets us pre-match colour out on Wembley Way,” says Williams. BBC Sport is using a Sony FX3 camera. “It offers some lovely colour shots pre-match on Wembley Way for use in the VT edit on site, films fan reactions during the match, and post-match celebrations on the pitch. It is a live feed so TNT can use the pictures during the match, or it can playback some of the colour shots in SSM direct from the camera for VT to turn around.”

Highlighting social media

Additionally, two producers from the BBC Sport digital team will be on-site at Wembley filming behind each goal. They will be capturing footage from the match, post-match celebrations and any nice moments during the game.

Adds Williams: “They will also vox pop fans about Pep Guardiola on Wembley Way before the game. There will then be two digital producers back in Salford to clip up and post any of the chat and footage captured from the day.”

In addition, there will be three edits on site in Salford who will be working on the FA Cup highlights programme. “Once we’re off air on BBC One, we have additional content on BBC iPlayer for any interviews that haven’t gone out yet, such as anyone else that could join us pitchside, and those do really well digitally.

“Then once we finished with all of that, so once we’re off air on iPlayer, I will set up to record the FA Cup highlights pitchside. That will be with Jason Muhammad and maybe one or two guests that haven’t quite been confirmed yet. I’ll use a couple of cameras to film chats and links for the FA Cup highlights. That then gets sent to Salford down the reverse vision link and that’s edited in Salford and then played out later on that evening. It will be played out very late because of the Eurovision song contest!”

Watch the FA Cup final on Saturday 16 May on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, plus and TNT Sports and HBO Max