There is no longer any doubt that the FA Cup currently represents a shadow of its former glory. Indeed the FA Cup is as much the World’s Greatest Domestic Cup Competition as the Champions League is a league contested by champions. Quite frankly, there is no World’s Great Domestic Cup Competition and similarly there is no real Champions League.
The most lucrative, highest quality competition in the world does not just feature the league champions. It also takes the runners up, the third place team and in the major leagues, the team who finishes fourth. It has been six seasons since that fourth placed team finished within 20 points of the champions in England. This season is just over half way through and the fourth placed team is already 12 points behind.
Is it a good thing that the fourth placed league team earns Champions League football over the best cup team?
While the yearning for a larger, higher quality, competition has become an ever more pressing requirement, the Champions League has sought to ensure that even if Europe’s best clubs have a poor season they will always have a place at the financial head table. The Champions League demands that the biggest names compete rather than the best teams; a philosophy that leads to the biggest names remaining the best teams as opposed to their being any sort of open competition.
We say that finishing second is a greater feat than winning a cup. That is saying that losing is better than winning. We say it because the rewards are so much larger and the effort so much larger. We subconsciously assign the rewards as feats – the Premiership prize money and Champions League qualification makes us assume that the winners of those rewards are more deserving than the winners of an actual competition. For second place, it almost makes sense; 38 games is a long time after all and the league represents endurance and effort as much as skill. For third place it begins to stretch the argument though and for fourth place it loses all meaning.
We completely forget that winning a cup is a great feat in its own right. It is not the same feat of endurance but one almost entirely of skill and performance under pressure. Something we have completely lost touch with.
Ironically, while a famous club like Liverpool may never come close to winning (or deserving to win) their domestic league, they can win the Champions League by being a good cup team. So here we have the bizarre setup where a team qualifies by being only the fourth best league team yet can win a cup competition which does not accept the league’s best cup teams.
So surely this must mean that the best cup teams compete in the UEFA Cup (which replaced and diluted the Cup Winners Cup) and not the Champions League? The statistics certainly suggest as much; since the European Supercup became a single leg match in 1998, the UEFA Cup winners have won this one off cup match six times to the Champion League’s, four. Certainly this suggests that the best cup teams would have something to add to the Champions League.
While the Champions League is the richest, highest quality competition in world football, it still does not reflect how good football can actually be since it fails to embrace the style of play that is best suited to competing in its competition. Have no doubt, there is a distinct mindset needed to perform in one-off matches. We all too easily write off the elimination match as a bit of a lottery just as we do penalty shootouts. The truth is that both require distinct skills, psychological strengths and even the knowledge that you are a team with a cup (or in the German case, penalty) pedigree. By all means have qualification from the league – have the majority of teams from that competition if you place such high stock on endurance – but to completely exclude the cup champions not only leaves the competition lacking and filled up with less well-suited teams but the astronomical financial disparity between the two European competitions has begun to render domestic cup competitions – and cup football in general – a meaningless exercise and a forgotten art.
While the same teams qualify for the richest competition, the lack of churn leads to stagnation in the European game where an unhappy and competitively destructive stasis has taken hold. Given the strength of the largest clubs, the money the Champions League bestows upon them and the difference of that money with the rest of football, the power the largest clubs hold over the governing bodies both domestically and in Europe has in essence created an oligopoly. Opening Champions League qualification to the FA Cup winners would both enhance the competition and challenge the stagnation.
A common argument against FA Cup, Champions League qualification is “but one of the top four teams always wins the cup anyway”. An argument which is hard to deny given the last 10 years of the competition but it is one even harder to break when those same four teams qualify for the Champions League with ease from the league every year. Take one of those places away and not only does that remove the guarantee of a fourth place finish but greatly increases the chances that another, different team can benefit from the money and prestige of being in the Champions League.
If you win the FA Cup you are by definition the best cup team in England. If that means that runners up Millwall are in the Champions League then so be it. Surely the second best cup team is more deserving of a Champions League place if the winners qualified by the league than the team who finished behind three other teams? And if not, then let the place go to the league. The incentive for the winners would be enough.
If it were the case that the top four would continue to win the FA Cup were it to offer a way into the Champions League then why would the footballing glitterati – the G14 – be so conclusively against it? Predictably, Platini’s suggestion fell by the wayside. After all, if you have a vice grip on an endless stream of money and the influence to maintain that position, would you not fear any change which challenges that grip?
That there is the assumption of yearly Champions League football for so many teams means that the best players will never show loyalty to any clubs other than those who are easy to show loyalty to. Give Champions League qualification to the FA Cup winners and those players whose heads are so easily turned by a top four club can now start to think that playing for a cup team can also see them grace the best competition in the world. Consequence? More supporters get to feel the pride of a player coming through the youth team feeling that they can fulfil their ambitions with that club.
The simplest question remains this; is it better to have the 4th best league team or the best cup team in Europe’s best club competition? I believe the answer to be an obvious one.
While the FA Cup remains “just another route into [UEFA Cup] Europe” then the prize is no greater than finishing seventh or winning something called the Intertoto Cup. Similarly, the financial disparity between the Champions League and all others is designed to allow only those teams hewn from money to regularly qualify.
Until England can name Tottenham Hotspur, Everton, Aston Villa, Manchester City and Newcastle with four obvious others as occasional or regular winners of the two main domestic competitions then the healing of the rift between the elite and the rest cannot begin and the restoration of the once-great FA Cup and the glory of the knock-out match will not return.
Currently however, the art of cup football has died and barely anyone has noticed.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi there again, another great read. All rings true. But I think true fans have noticed as seen by the fall in attendances at a lot of ties. I have said for a long time that the cup winners should enter the CL. I only hope my team wins it in my lifetime!
Cheers Billy, good to see you.
I started the article more as an argument for FA Cup = 4th place and it ended up trying to be about how there is a distinct characterisation to Cup football and a team’s history (explains why Spurs have won 2 championships but 22 cups) – Spurs have the skills and expectation necessary to win cups just like Liverpool (used to) have the same for winning leagues.
In the end I think I lost the thread of the argument since there are three things concepts there; cup mentality/football type, fourth place not deserving CL and saving the FA Cup (which I broached in the previous article).
One thing I’m fairly sure about however is that Spurs will be winning something very soon… if not as a result of tomorrows match then within the next 18 months I am quite sure. It’s in our history and it’s something we never let ourselves forget (nor should we) and now we have a superb organisation with excellent players and a proven coach with a cup pedigree… I saw a lot of Sevilla and Ramos’ invariably makes teams perfectly designed for winning cups.