FA Cup

February 1, 2008 - at Liverpool

The Cup is a competition not so much highly valued in some countries although in England, as it also happens in many other things, it is quite different. FA Cup still emanates the old fashion football. Emotion, full up stadiums, direct matches. Face to face games. And it is a tournament where anybody can provide a surprise. The English Football Association gives maximum importance to this tittle. A good example takes place last weekend where the Premiership competition was stopped to dispute a qualifying round of the FA Cup. And for a lot of clubs in England the exiting fact of going ahead or out from this competition was enervating most of supporters. In the FA Cup the topic of not to be confident with any enemy even small is hundred per cent certain. Ask this to Liverpool FC who in last 32 qualifying round last Saturday was out of the competition for several minutes in the match against the modest Havant & Waterlooville, a team five categories below Liverpool, who fought with dignity in front of the famous team of Anfield Road. Moreover, the great virtue of this competition is the profits that modest clubs obtain. For that small club, for example, this qualifying round supposed an important economical input because the FA gives a third of the money collected to the team who plays away. Therefore a third of the money collected at Anfield Road was directly to the strongbox of Havant. And still more important – the social milestone that supposed for an small city to dispute that match. If only 2,000 people attend the matches that Havant plays at home, more than 6,000 supporters went to Anfield and sold out all the tickets reserved for them. There are still some qualifying rounds before reaching semi-finals round and final match which probably is the most exiting football match that supporters are waiting for to attend it at New Wembley Stadium.