The FA Cup Final

The Game Room
1

Portsmouth v Cardiff :eek:

Well fair play to them at least but let’s be honest here…who the fuck is gonna watch the final other than a bunch of hairy sailors and a load of warbling Taffies.

And who did these 2 powerhouses of English football beat in the semis…WBA and fucking Barnsley…s’right Barnsley!! fer gawds sake they are 3rd bottom in their division and looking like relegation candidates.

Admittedly the Baggies are looking at promotion having scored more goals than the rest, apart from Posh, but bloody hell summats wrong when a cup final doesn’t have 2 premiership sides contesting it

2

Well I’m looking forward to the cup final for the first time in years. If ManuChelseaLiverpoolArsenal win it, who cares? Not even them, much. I would like to see Dave Jones get some silverware, or Harry Redknapp for that matter. He may be a bit dodgy but his track record as a manager is good.

3

I too would love to see David James and 'Arry get a trophy- they deserve it.

4

I’m disappointed Barnsley didn’t go through. I wanted to see them win the Cup and get relegated in the same season… has anyone else ever had that dubious distinction?

5

I can only think of Brighton who lost the 1983 final to the rags and were relegated same year

6

You didn’t give these earlier results:

  • Manchester United 0 - 1 Portsmouth
  • Liverpool 1 - 2 Barnsley
  • Barnsley FC 1 - 0 Chelsea

Nothing seems wrong to me - these teams have beaten the best to get to Wembley.
I certainly wouldn’t want a Cup Final between teams chosen because they were in the Premiership, or had scored lots of goals or were promotion candidates.

7

i agree.

I’m a gooner and would quite happily have wanted Arsenal to win it, but we were knocked out fair and square, as were Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool.

Big kudos to the teams that made it to the final, and you can be damn sure that i’ll be watching it and cheering Pompey on.

8

Middlesborough reached the League Cup and FA Cup finals in 1997 and were relegated from the Premiership that season.

9

So they did, I forgot about them. :smack:

Anyways, I’ve had £10 on Cardiff to win, I mean the way it’s gone this year it’s a bloody cert

10

Can I interest you in a bridge?
Could you help me get money out of my Nigerian Bank account? :slight_smile:

11

Norwich beat Sunderland in the 1985 League Cup and both teams were relegated in the same season.

12

Questions: Why are there 2 cups? Does every team try to win both cups every year, or do teams just shoot for 1 every year? What’s the most prestigious? How important are the cups in relation to the league championship? How important are the cups and league championship in relation to the Champion’s League or UEFA cup? Do all the major soccer leagues have their own version of these cups?

13

The FA Cup goes back over 100 years. FA stands for Football Association (the governing body).
The League Cup goes back about 30 years. It was dreamt up as a money-making scheme by the clubs.

The FA Cup used to be fiercely contested. The League Cup took a while to become popular. However both became important … until the European competitions expanded.
The Champions League Cup event (for the leading clubs in all the European Leagues) is now the big one, with huge TV audiences and accompanying sponsorship.
So a top club, like Chelsea or Manchester United, will put their best team in the Champions League every time. they may put out some reserves and youngsters in the FA Cup and even more so in the League Cup.

14

Thanks for the answers. I actually began some research after I asked these questions, and found the following quote about today’s Champion League match on ESPN: “Ferguson decided to leave Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney on the bench with a crucial Barclays Premier League match to follow against Arsenal on Sunday.” So, it appears that the league championship is most important to a team, unless this was an anomaly.

15

ManU and Arsenal are fighting it out for the top spot in the Premiere League. In addition, ManU already had a comfortable 2-0 advantage over Roma after the 1st leg of the quarterfinals in Champions league. No sense in risking your top players when your bench is as deep as ManUre’s.

I was disappointed Barnesly lost…but not as much as I was over the skates winning. :wink:

16

The UEFA Champions League and the big national leagues (Italy, Spain, England, maybe Germany) are of roughly equal importance to the teams taking part in them. Man Utd might prefer to win the Champions League, if they had to choose, because they have won the domestic league a couple of times recently, but not the European Cup for a few years, and only ever twice. A club like Liverpool, on the other hand, might prefer to win the English Premier League, given the choice. The Champions League may be bigger in international terms but winning a major league, rather than a mini-league/knockout hybrid, really proves something.

Most if not all countries have a knockout tournament in addition to the league. Some have a League Cup equivalent too. I couldn’t say how they compare in prestige to their English equivalents.

17

Just caught that…funny…not a fan, I presume?

18

Not quite. :wink: I’m an accidental Liverpool fan which, I’ve been told, is pathetically American and really no better than being a ManU or Arsenal supporter.

I think it’s more pathetic that I took Tuesday afternoon off from work to watch the 2nd leg of the Champions League match live. :rolleyes:

19

Not as pathetic as that bloody penalty.

20

No, as chique rightly said, Man U were already 2-0 ahead with a home tie to come. (Last season Man U won this fixture 7-1!)
Of course the League is important. But the viewing figures, TV sponsorship and prestige in the Champions League are all massive.