Avoiding the Drop

The following conversation occurred between my wife and I earlier this week.

Me: Hey, that’s cool. Jozy Altidore scored his first goal today.

Mrs. Haaskivi: Oh, good for him. Who was it against?

Me: Southend United.

Mrs. Haaskivi: Who?

Me: Southend. They’re in like League One.

Mrs. Haaskivi: Why were they playing Hull?

Me: It was the second round of the Carling Cup.

Mrs. Haaskivi: The what?

It was then that I realized the problem. My wife, like many soccer fans, has grown up exposed to only American sports, where there’s only one winner at the end of the season. Soccer’s different; there are multiple tournaments that a team can enter, all of which are completely independent from each other. With cup tournaments kicking off all over England, we’re going to take a look at the different English and European cup tournaments with an aim at clearing up the confusion between which cup is which. Today, we’ll start with the grand daddy of them all: the FA Cup.

The FA Cup

Date Started: The FA Cup is the oldest football competition in the world, first being held in 1871 (interestingly, the hotbed of international soccer that is India has the second oldest).

Who’s Eligible: Any team that plays at any level on the English Football Pyramid, from the Premier League to the fourth division of the Bristol Downs Football League, can enter the FA Cup as long as they have both participated in a league the prior year and have a stadium to play in. Last year, 762 teams participated in the tournament; the same number entered this year, but one (Newcastle Blue Star) folded before they were able to compete.

How It Works: In order to whittle 762 teams down to one eventual champion, you need a lot of rounds and you need to start early. This year, there are fourteen rounds: two preliminary rounds, four qualifying rounds, and eight “proper” rounds. The first preliminary round, encompassing the 406 teams from Tiers 9 through 24 on the English league pyramid, kicked off on August 15th (when you were watching the Premier League kick off). The 203 winning teams round that “Extra Preliminary Round” will meet up with the 131 teams in the eighth tier for the “First Preliminary Round” this Saturday; by the ninth round (or “Third Round Proper”, depending on how formal we want to be), the Premier League and Championship teams are thrown into the mix.

Opposition is determined with an open draw, which is a fancy way of saying “they throw all the names into a hat and pick them at random.” This draw is a big deal; it’s kind of like Selection Sunday for the NCAA tournament without the bitching about which teams got screwed by the committee. The draw for the “First Round Proper” is broadcast on TV. The first team that’s picked is the home team, the second team is the away team. It’s a single elimination tournament, too, so there’s a big advantage to being the home team.

The beauty of the FA Cup is that, in theory, it’s possible for a team to advance all the way from the first round all the way to the final; all you’d have to do is beat the team in front of you and maybe hope for a little extra luck in the draw. In practice, teams that knock out lower sides are called “giant killers”. Last year, Kettering Town, Torquay United, Hartlepool United were the more notable giant killers, all of them taking down teams at least two leagues higher than themselves. Kettering Town and Torquay United actually hung around until the “Fourth Round Proper”, where they were beaten by Fulham and Coventry City, respectively.

And that’s really the other similarity with the NCAA Tournament. While theoretically a team could go from the beginning to the final at Wembley, it never really happens.The only time a team not in the Football League (the Football League is the top four tiers of the English League Pyramid) won the FA Cup was Tottenham’s win way back in 1901; Tottenham was in the Southern League and wouldn’t make the top flight for seven more years.

Just because they probably won’t win everything doesn’t mean the tournament’s worthless for lower league teams. First off, there’s escalating prize money for getting into each roung; Kettering and Torquay both made £254,750 for getting to the Fourth Round Proper. That’s no big deal for most Premier League clubs, but for a smaller team that can be an entire year’s wage bill.

The other perk for smaller teams is the possibility of hosting a match at home. The word “stadium” encompasses a lot of venues; some of those venues are Old Trafford, while others are smaller venues in small towns that don’t really get a lot of press. Such was the case last season, when Conference National side Histon FC (from Histon, population: 4,450) was drawn against Leeds United. Leeds have fallen on hard times lately, but they’re still a side that should’ve been able to take Histon. Instead, they came home and were sent packing, losing 1-0 after a headed goal from midfielder Matthew Langston. Langston isn’t exactly a household name, but in Histon he’s a popular local figure; he’s their mailman. 4,450 people live in Histon, and that game saw 4,103 people show up. Excluding Leeds fan, it’s still a safe bet that probably 3/4 of the town was there. Pretty cool.

The competition final is held wraps up at Wembley in late May; Chelsea are the current holders. Manchester United, with 11 cups, are the most successful team in the tournament, followed by Arsenal (10) and Tottenham (8). Also, if you somehow win the FA Cup and yet fail to qualify for European competition through the league, than you automatically qualify for the Europa League’s qualifying round.

The FA Cup is one of the trophies an English team technically needs to win to qualify for a “Treble” (the other two being the Champions League and the Premier League titles, all withing the same year). Currently, only Manchester United has accomplished that feat; that’s how Alex Ferguson became Sir Alex Ferguson.

Competition Quirks: The draw seems quirky, but it’s really not; pretty much every cup competition determines fixtures with a draw. The biggest quirk of the FA Cup is the replay system.

No, not video replay; match replay. If a match is still drawn at the end of 90 minutes in most cup tournaments, it first goes to extra time and then moves to penalties. Not in the FA Cup. In the FA Cup, they feel that the best way to resolve a draw is to replay the entire game. Replays are usually held at the other team’s stadium, which is nice. Since 1990, if a match is drawn at the end of the second game, the teams follow regular “extra time/penalty kick” rules to advance, with away goals not being taken into consideration.

What happened before 1990? Well, before that, they’d just play it again. And again. And again. See, usually those replays were held three or four days later; in 1990, police indicated that they’d need at least ten days to prepare for a replay, which forced the change (imagine telling London police that Millwall would be visiting West Ham…in four days. You can see the problem.).

Before 1990, though, that number was essentially unlimited. The FA’s stance seemed to be, “Eventually someone will win; let them sort it out.” Some cup ties took six matches to resolve. In 1975, it took Fulham 12 games to get through six rounds of the competition; they eventually made the final, losing to West Ham, but setting the record for “most games ever played to reach a cup final” in the process.