THIS IS THE LAST STRAW!!!
When it was announced yesterday that the FA Cup was going to get rid of all remaining proper-stage replays starting next year, I locked myself in my room and bawled for a good ten minutes. It had finally happened: The proliferation of European competition fixtures, coupled with the Premier League's cop out culture, had finally committed the anathema of anathemas against football's oldest competition, regardless of format.
When I mention the Premier League's cop out culture, I mean that player safety and welfare are used as an excuse to reduce the number of domestic fixtures. Yet these concerns are aired despite the fact that teams in the six divisions immediately below the Premier League (National League North and South divisions are both at the sixth tier of the pyramid) are supposed to play eight more league fixtures per season than their top-flight brethren and, again, are muddled by the proliferation of European fixtures.
When I was born in 1989, the big three European competitions (which most Americans didn't know jack about) were straight-up two-legged, home-and-away knockouts (except for the European Cup and Cup Winners' Cup finals, but the UEFA Cup final continued to be home and away until 1998). But some butthurt suit in the early 1990s at, I think, Real Madrid noticed that out-of-nowhere Red Star Belgrade was doing numbers on Europe's club ball royalty, so the bigwigs of Europe implemented a group stage to restrict the little guy. It initially backfired, as Barcelona beat relative backwater club Sampdoria in the 1992 European Cup Final. Undeterred, Big Football added a second progression from each group, renamed the competition the Champions League and, after successfully opening up the transfer market in light of the Bosman ruling of 1995, got UEFA to violate the name of the competition.
Hitherto the Champions League had been just for champions, whether national champs or the champions of Europe. But in 1997-98, UEFA caved in again and allowed eight national runners-up to enter the Champions League. A limit of two plus champions became a limit of four by 2000 and five in 2015. Now, starting next year, as many as seven clubs may represent a given country depending on the performance of the nation's clubs that were involved in European competition the previous year, as well as the outcomes of the Champions and Europa Leagues. (The UEFA Cup, a few years after introducing a group stage of its own, rebranded to its current name in 2009. As for the Cup Winners' Cup, it folded into the UEFA Cup in 1999, but the competitions became three in number again with the advent of the Conference League in 2021.)
It is natural to seek a higher high, but what good is a mansion with gold trim and gilded fixtures if its foundation is built upon shifting sand? The storms will come, and it will fall--and great will be its downfall! Evidence of this in England includes the deaths of the Bury and Macclesfield football clubs, as well as other clubs' flirtations with oblivion (i.e., Bolton Wanderers). I cannot imagine that any supporter of a club in European competition who has a heart does not feel a twinge of guilt and remorse for what their love of European glory has done to the grassroots or even lesser pro clubs--or to the competitions that were greatly beloved in their respective countries.
And few competitions in world football have surpassed the romance of the FA Cup. You want diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)? Well, the DEI of the FA Cup lay in its accessibility and the possibility that any club could defeat another club. Over 700 clubs from the top nine-plus divisions on the pyramid--in other words, almost every FC of importance in England, plus a few in Wales and some offshore islands--might not all get that far, but the hope of a replay and the financial reward that came with doing it all again portended a good chance that a given small-town club would not only survive but thrive for a while. It was a beautiful thing, whether or not the little-guy club pulled a giant-killing against some bigwig eleven (as most famously befell Newcastle United at the hands of host Hereford United in a 1972 third-round replay, a clip of which I have embedded below).
I mentioned that, as an American, I didn't know a thing about the Cup and its lore growing up. During the transition from my failed first attempt at grad school to the successful second, though, I immersed myself imperceptibly in the "magic of the Cup" and typed up a file (sadly now lost) containing all the results, attendances and payouts for each team involved in the 2015-16 edition. I even included red cards and goalscorers for the proper stage! Having committed to West Ham as my Premier League club of choice, I followed their narrow escape over Wolverhampton Wanderers in the third round...and then came the first replay, where they beat Liverpool in added time! Love of the Cup was sealed in my soul for years, even after the Hammers lost another replay, this time to Manchester United in the quarterfinals that season in what proved that round's last-ever replay. (It was also the last-ever FA Cup match at Upton Park.) Not even the Conference League title in 2023 for the Hammers felt as good as being able to spread my love of the Cup, both personally and academically. I wrote a thesis with the Cup as its sporting foundation, graduating from Minnesota State Mankato in 2021 with my master's degree.
Now all those memories have been strangled by the "money first, football nowhere" ethos of the modern game, to quote Phil Annets (whose work I strongly recommend). Because the Cup doesn't have much prize money despite its international reach on television, and because it doesn't carry a Champions League berth to the winner, it's dismissed as inconvenient by the big clubs and their people. (This despite the fact that all but four Cups in my lifetime have been won by the "big six," for which reason their opposition to a UCL berth for the Cup winner is also largely hypocritical.) Hence, backup players are often thrust into match day squads for Cup fixtures, unless it's the only hope for silverware that a given club has on the campaign. Sadly, their attitudes have seeped into many fans as well, especially those who don't know or have forgotten the pitfalls of forsaking their sporting roots. All this adds up to a bleak outlook for the Cup, one that is even murkier than when Covid-19 struck a few years ago.
All told, this season might be the last one during which I feel comfortable doing FA Cup picks. I cannot abide doing them without replays. RIP FA Cup proper stage replays. May your memory be a blessing to all football fans.
Having said that, here are my semifinal picks:
Manchester City 3-4 Chelsea (actual 1-0)
Coventry City 1-2 Manchester United (actual 3-3, Man United won on pens; 500pt)
Edward the Scop
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