Chris Richards hailed his unlikely journey to becoming just the second American to play in and win an FA Cup final on Saturday, after the Alabama-native helped Crystal Palace stun Manchester City 1-0 at London’s Wembley Stadium.

Richards joins Tim Howard, who lifted the trophy with Manchester United in 2004, as Americans to have won the world’s oldest national soccer competition. Richards’ Palace and United States teammate Matt Turner was an unused substitute but becomes the third American overall to taste FA Cup glory.

“It means a lot,” he told ESPN. “I mean, I think growing up, I never watched the FA Cup. I’m from Alabama, so we definitely didn’t have that on TV.

“So being able to not just do it for Americans, but also do for the kids back home who have a dream of playing over here. I think it means the world to me.”

Richards was a key part of a Crystal Palace back line that conceded just one goal in six matches en route to the club’s first-ever major trophy.

“We just tried to keep it one play at a time,” he added. “The first 15 minutes we didn’t touch the ball. So we’re just thinking, if we can just do our job and let the guys up front put one or two in, that’s exactly what we’re gonna do.

“And I think our first attack, we scored. So I mean, we’re a really tight group. A shoutout starts from from the front so all 11 that played, 11 that started today, was a part of the clean sheet.”

In front of more than 84,000 spectators, Palace went ahead in the 16th minute when Eberechi Eze swept home Daniel Muñoz’s cross from inside the box at the end of a swift break.

The outcome might have been different if Omar Marmoush had converted a first-half penalty to level the score, but his effort was saved by Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson.

“I think if you told us this at the beginning of season, they wouldn’t have believed it,” Richards said. “But it was just a lot of dedication, a lot of hard work, a lot of long days at the training ground.”

Richards now has plenty to look forward to over the next few months. FA Cup glory means Palace will be in the Europa League next season, while he will expect to be part of Mauricio Pochettino’s U.S. men’s national team squad that tries to win the Gold Cup this summer.

“Let’s win a trophy this summer with the national team, and next season we have some big competitions to plan, so hopefully we can continue this streak of a trophy a season,” he said.

“I think it’s a really ambitious team I think the [manager] that came in and we saw this from day one that he’s very ambitious. And we saw that today again with the win, so it was amazing.”