Mourinho and Real Madrid
Caravaggio may not have painted his masterpiece to convey the mismatch as effectively as the Saturday’s FA Cup final depicts the irony of two footballing foes battling for supremacy.
The Saturday’s Cup final at the new Wembley pitch (11th in 3 years time) pits two teams at the opposite ends of the English top flight football spectrum, its Roman Abrahamovic’s Chelsea against an administrator run Portsmouth in the F A Cup tomorrow.
The pairing could not have been any more mismatched as the recently crowned champions of the English Premier League take on the recently relegated and cash stripped Portsmouth.
Portsmouth have nothing to lose in final, win or lose they will still be playing their football a tier below their rivals tonight in the Coca Cola Championship, their entry into Europe has already been denied for them going into administration or else a win tonight would have surely guaranteed them a place in Europe’s next season, even a loss could as Chelsea will already be playing Champions League next season so their qualification into the final was enough to guarantee them a place in Europe but their misery is self constructed.
It is no fault of the players, in fact you may even feel sorry for them but the truth of the matter is that there is no escaping for them or maybe there is, as many of them will be moving on for greener pastures and eventually it’s the ultimate loss of the Pompey fans.
It is said that there isn’t a worse thing in the world than facing an enemy which has nothing to lose, and tonight will be the best exponent of that example as Portsmouth will look to put a spanner in the works of the slick machinery that is the Chelsea football team.
Roman Abrahamovic and Carlo Ancelotti will both be aware of this fact as they take their team to Wembley tomorrow for the FA Cup final and a win will see them win the domestic double and Portsmouth will surely love to disrupt the harmony and elation of the London Blues.
Portsmouth will surely be aiming to defy the conventional wisdom, any footballing logic and common sense and will try to summon one final effort in their troubled season to derail the blues’ dream of a domestic double and history suggests they have more than a fighting chance of doing that, you want examples, sure remember the 1973 FA Cup final when Sunderland became the first team from the second division to win the FA cup for the first time since 1931, another would be the FA Cup final of 1978 and 1980 when Arsenal lost to Ipswich and West ham and in the recent history it was Wimbledon beating the mighty reds of Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup final and that too when the Merseyside’s were at their prime.
So the task at hand for Portsmouth may be a mighty one but history states that it has been done before and Portsmouth and Chelsea both know that and that only is a reason enough for tomorrows match to be an absolute cracker.
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