Tag: FA Cup

More Tragic than Magic Cup

More Tragic than Magic Cup

Heading into another FA Cup weekend the phrase: “Magic of the Cup” will be brandished about in an attempt to repackage nostalgia as relevancy. The sad truth is that the oldest domestic club competition is looking its age. Bold steps need to be taken to save the tournament becoming no different than the League Cup, or worse, a Premier League club’s equivalent of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

The irony is, those two lesser cups have the answers that could help alleviate some of the pressure bearing down on the FA Cup. In How to Make the FA Cup Great Again the notion of making the fourth Champions League place available to the winners was put forward. That’s less likely to occur now than at any point previously.

The FA Cup now needs to accept its place on the priorities and level of importance list that clubs attach to it. Failure to do this will make it nothing more than an annoyance, that witnesses weakened sides take to the field as clubs rest key players for bigger games.

The quickest way to appease the larger teams is the removal of replays. Should Manchester City, a team still in all four competitions, draw with Chelsea on Sunday, they will have to find a week that has eight days to host the replay.

Manuel Pellegrini has already hinted that a weakened City side will face the Londoners, after being upset his team play so close to a long trip to play Dynamo Kiev. This is slightly cheeky considering last season the Citizens travelled to the UAE for a game only days before their FA Cup tie with Middlesbrough. When it suited the club, travelling was played down. Suddenly it’s important again.

What it does highlight is how the FA Cup is seen as a burden. It sits behind the league and European competition, and at this point in City’s season, less important than the League Cup final. The dread of a replay only further takes away any shine for the club’s management.

Making FA Cup ties one time affairs reduces the fixture congestion. It will also ensure each game is played with the true spirit of a knock-out cup game. At the moment smaller teams hang on for a lucrative payday back at a big ground rather than throw caution to the wind. This enables pampered teams to negotiate the tricky lower league pitches with a degree of danger removed.

But even teams in the lower leagues would prefer to avoid a replay rather than extend a “cup run” that, in all likelihood, won’t get them anywhere near Wembley. Survival is more pressing than chasing empty dreams.

Such is the fear of injuries and fatigue, clubs will consider dropping large numbers of the first team for FA Cup ties, the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy offers a great example of how to help clubs avoid both these problems. After 90 minutes the game should go straight to penalties.

Why give the home team the advantage of another 30 minutes on familiar soil? Save the legs and get straight to the shootout. It’s another way to increase the excitement levels and encourage maverick tactics in normal time.

Traditionalists will feel uncomfortable with the suggestion that FA Cup fixtures could be moved to midweek. At first glance, it does seem like a drastic measure. A further undermining of a flogged dead horse. However, there may be some credit to the idea.

Tuesday and Wednesday games haven’t harmed the Champions League. Perhaps the FA Cup could ride on the coattails of UEFA’s success with a competition and populate otherwise vacant midweeks with something meaningful. The only major concern – aside from losing a familiar (often bemoaned) weekend showcase – is how it will impact working class fans that have to travel on a work night.

The FA needs to consider changes like this. It’s sold its own cup down the river so many times in recent years (starting with the 1999 winners, Manchester United, withdrawing from the following season’s competition to compete in the World Club Cup) and devaluing it ever since. To carry on in the same format is consigning it to death.

No matter how many times the BBC say “The Magic of the Cup” this weekend, the truth is, this once great competition has become a footballing tragedy.

How to Make The FA Cup Great Again

How to Make The FA Cup Great Again

Paul Lambert claimed this week that if asked, and they answered honestly, most managers would rather like to do away with The FA Cup. What a grim view of the oldest domestic cup competition in the world. The greatest domestic cup, in fact. I understand the sentiment he was trying to make but he is wrong.

As I have discussed in blogs here, and extensively in Financial Fair Prejudice, football today is a business. Lambert was highlighting how Premier League survival is more important than a good cup run, or even cup success, it seems. The implication that he’d trade places in The FA Cup for three points is disrespectful to the great competition. Whilst I understand the money on offer by competing in the Premier League overshadows the domestic cup competition in the modern game, I fail to believe proper fans want mid-table mediocrity for their entire existence over an FA Cup being added to an otherwise sparse history with regard to successes.

Of course the chairmen will take mid-table – hell, even a relegation battle every year – as long as the Premier League money keeps rolling in. Surely it’s better to go down, survive on the parachute payments, then return and be able to say you’d won the domestic big one. If Wigan do return to the Premier League in the next few years they’ll be no worse off than they were previous but their history is richer. The taste of one glorious day at Wembley makes an inevitable relegation easier to bear. And from disappointment tinged with success great things can grow. What Lambert suggests is we should all be happy with a bleak existence.

For those – like the Villa manager – that will never agree to this, that dream of one day flirting with a six place finish so they can qualify for the Europa League, which they can do if they win The FA Cup, I can offer one alternative. Wouldn’t it be great if The FA Cup winners gained entry to the Champions League? Suddenly the dismissive comments made about competing in The FA Cup disappear. Suddenly it’s one lotto every chairman in the land wants to buy a ticket for.

Thusly the problem emerges: UEFA would never want to allow the risk of a Wigan entering the top European competition whilst potentially battling in the Championship. I see the conundrum but it is a shame. Ignoring the fact the Champions League itself turns into a knockout tournament, so is a little lottery when all said and done, the fear a team too weak to qualify would prove unfounded. The prize of Champions League qualification would mean the top sides would try even harder to win it. To the point any team – even one from outside the established top six in the Premier League – would have to be deemed worthy as they’d need to defeat a usual Champions League opponent at some point. An opponent firing on all cylinders, focused on the ultimate prize.

If Champions League qualification was attached to The FA Cup imagine how electric the Wembley final would become once again. For children of my generation cup final day was the highlight of the year. The Superbowl of Soccer, if you will. By making victory equate to what only the top three teams in England gained after a long thirty-eight game season it’d have fans around the globe on the edge of their seats.

I mention the top three because clearly that qualification spot would be grabbed from the fourth placed team. This year’s Premier League has been the most open and engaging for a long time, imagine how much more fascinating it would be with less league qualification spots and the cup wildcard thrown in. And how’s this for a kicker – if a team outside the top three happened to win the Champions League that year it’d only be the top two and The FA Cup victors that would qualify alongside them. Those chairman in the usual top six would be the most reluctant to slim their league chances further. They’d be the minority. The majority would crave FA Cup football. At the moment everyone is lukewarm to The FA Cup and a minority placed in Premier League relegation fights seem to actively dislike it.

Let’s do what’s good for the many – not the few. The many clubs that would love a cup competition with such a rich prize, not to mention history. And the many, many fans. It’s always the fans that should matter first. Not chairmen blinded by money, or managers lacking imagination and desire.

The Magic of the Cup

The Magic of the Cup

In days gone by the FA Cup Final was the curtain closing showcase end to the English football season. As a boy I’d wait excited all day by the television. Watching the teams arrive at the stadium in their special FA Cup suits. Later doing their special pitch walk. All of them looking relaxed but bubbling with the sense of the big occasion just like the fans watching. Winning the FA Cup may not have given a team bragging rights about being the best in the land but the desire on that day matched the league campaign. If a team managed the league and cup double it was a mark of excellence.
 
Nowadays the cup clubs want in their double, sometimes before the domestic league itself, is the Champions League. The prestige of the world’s greatest and oldest domestic cup now sits above the League Cup as a consolation prize or a good addition to the Premier League/Champions League double. It doesn’t take priority. Which is a shame. It doesn’t even get to be the closing game of the season due to Wembley staging the Champions League final this year. Over the years its value had been left to erode to the point the cause take its slot as the season closer.
 
There is a paradox in this, and I love a paradox. The chase of the Champions League dream and most recent English success came by way of Chelsea. They failed to finish in the top four that year but were crowned Kings of Europe. Back in the old European Cup format at least when teams like Liverpool had their successes they deserved that mantle without question. And the FA Cup still had its importance. Clubs chase the Champions League dream when on paper it should be the one devalued. Unless they’re chasing the cash flow of competitions regardless of other factors. I’d love to see the FA Cup winners be awarded a spot in the Champions League in place of the fourth placed Premier League side. Of course UEFA will never allow that but it’s one way to make the Cup illustrious again.
 
Despite the current state of the Cup compared to its former glory days, come final day it is the biggest game on Earth for the two teams. This year we’ll see Manchester City face Wigan Athletic. Both sets of fans appreciating the trip to compete like it was ten Champions League finals rolled into one. It wasn’t so long ago Manchester City dreamed of the current success they’re currently experiencing and Wigan probably started this season with the aim to avoid relegation. Neither will have enjoyed the league this year so the Cup provides a welcome distraction.
 
It’s more than just a distraction, though, they’ll both desire a win immensely. For Manchester City a season without something in their trophy cabinet will be seen as a massive failure. Whereas Wigan may well be thinking this could be their only chance for a long time to take some silverware. Even the managers’ futures could hang on the result. City’s Mancini could be given more time, as he deserves, should he take the FA Cup back to Manchester like he did a few years ago. Wigan’s Martinez on the other hand could be lured away if he wins a trophy with a small club.
 
The ramifications of success and defeat won’t be felt on the day. For that special time at Wembley the fans and players alike can be lured into the spell of the FA Cup and will willingly partake in the belief it’s the only game that’s mattered all season. If there’s any doubt whether or not this cup is craved look at the faces of the winners after the final whistle. The magic of the cup will be etched on every one of them.