Man U and FA damaged the Cup more than Pellegrini ever did

o paraphrase a question supposedly
asked of George Best in a hotel
bedroom, where did it all go wrong
for the FA Cup ?
The answer remains the same:
Manchester. There are two obvious
salients to help chart the decline of the
nation’s favourite knockout
competition, and both involve decisions
made in and around Old Trafford over
the past couple of decades. The first was
Manchester United pulling out of the
2000 event, with the shameless
connivance of the Football Association,
to visit Brazil instead in what we now
know to be a hopelessly naive attempt
to win votes for a World Cup in
England.
What seemed a poor decision at the
time looks even worse from today’s
perspective, particularly as United were
not only the holders but defending the
Treble. Few teams will ever get the
chance to do that, and although the
domestic cup is clearly the weakest
element of the three titles, that it should
have been the FA helping undermine
the importance of its own competition
remains scandalous.
The next big low point came almost a
decade later, when United were beaten
by Everton in a 2009 Wembley semi-
final through fielding a weakened team.
Everton would never have got past a
full-strength United side, and failed to
convince in the final against Chelsea,
but Sir Alex Ferguson decided players
such as Wayne Rooney and Cristiano
Ronaldo would be better saved for
Champions League challenges ahead.
This was not the first time Ferguson had
made clear through team selection that
the FA Cup was low on his list of
priorities, and other managers had done
the same by this point, yet disrespecting
the competition at the semi-final stage
was a new slap in the face. In the old
days teams would never have done such
a thing when they were 90 minutes
from Wembley, but United already were
at Wembley (pah!) and nothing could
have demonstrated more starkly that the
old days and the old ways had been
consigned to history.
So all those accusing Manuel Pellegrini
of perpetrating the worst ever act of
vandalism on the FA Cup are wrong.
Chelsea v Manchester City ought to have
been the tie of the round and it was sad
to see how it ended up at the weekend,
but managers are paid to make
decisions and there was not only logic
but precedent behind Pellegrini’s
reasoning. He might yet end up with egg
on his face in either Europe or the
Capital One Cup final this week –
Ferguson’s careful husbanding of his
resources in 2009 saw United squeeze
past Arsenal in the Champions League
semis only to fall short against
Barcelona in the final in Rome – but
when you have a lengthy injury list and
three big matches in three different
competitions in the space of eight days,
then something has to give.
Those arguing that Pellegrini has turned
his back on more attainable silverware
are also being slightly unfair. In all
probability the FA Cup would have been
easier to win than the Champions
League, in which City have generally
struggled against the top sides. It would
have been easy too for Pellegrini to
concentrate on the domestic prizes in
his farewell season, so as not to bow out
empty-handed.
But the brief when Pellegrini arrived
was to advance and improve the team
in Europe, and he is doggedly sticking
to it. City have never been in the last
eight of the Champions League, and
now they have a chance. Even if they
don’t make it any further that at least is
experience in the bank for the next
manager to build upon. In the circles in
which City are now moving, the
company they are aspiring to keep, an
FA Cup win by itself would not be a
satisfactory return. Look at Arsenal.
They are pleased with two successive FA
Cups though not exactly delighted.
Mostly they are just relieved the joking
has stopped.
That is, of course, the trouble. Touching
as it was to hear City fans complaining
they fancied a day out at Wembley in
May, the bottom line is that the
Champions League and the FA Cup exist
in the same space. If you are lucky
enough to be involved in the first, you
are unlikely to allow the second to
compromise your chances. Occasional
treble feats might suggest otherwise,
though to win a treble you need to be
the best team in your country by a
considerable distance, and keep your
best players fit through the business
part of the season.

City are not in that situation, and it
must be remembered that though
United’s Cup final against Newcastle in
their Treble year was something of a
formality, the semi-final against Arsenal
involved a replay, a last-minute penalty
save and a prodigious winning goal . It
could have gone either way.
Even so, the fact that everyone
remembers Ryan Giggs’s memorable
winner means the FA Cup was alive and
well as recently as 1999. It still meant
something then, because both Arsenal
and United gave it everything they had.
Then United pulled out the following
season, and the decade that followed
brought a succession of mostly drab
finals – exceptions can be made for
2001 and 2006 – mainly because each
one involved teams from the Champions
League elite.
That expression, Champions League
elite, is ultimately where everything
went wrong for the FA Cup. In all the
years when only the champions from
each country contested the European
Cup the two competitions happily
existed side by side.
Things started to change from 1997‑98
when runners-up were first admitted,
and from the millennium onwards up to
four teams from the major leagues could
take part. Check those dates against the
perceived decline of the FA Cup. That’s
where the glory went.
How could it ever retain its old status
when the best four teams in the country
were required to play bigger, more
glamorous, more lucrative games at the
same time? Now people are talking
about switching to midweek or
scrapping replays, when they should be
looking instead at the insidious creep of
the Champions League. Ought it really
take a whole month to sort out the
round of 16?
That’s eight separate match-nights, from
16 February to 16 March, or four whole
closed midweeks, because Uefa will not
tolerate any televised competition to its
prestige tournament. Now the notion is
even being mooted that slackers such as
Manchester United should be allowed
access through a Champions League
wildcard. Keep an eye on that one.
Nothing in the Champions League’s
short history allows confidence that bad
ideas that work in favour of big clubs
will be rejected out of hand.
Too much of the debate over the past
week has assumed it is the FA Cup that
has become a problem. It certainly has
a few problems, though its basic
precepts of fairness, accessibility and
opportunity ought to be celebrated
rather than abandoned or adapted in
the name of progress.
Especially if progress is represented by
a competition that was designed to be
elitist, self-enriching and disruptive.
Stealthily invading space that belongs to
others while refusing to make
concessions of its own, the biggest
problem here is the one hiding in plain
view.