It's 12:30am and I'm watching Liverpool play Luton Town in the FA Cup. For those who do not follow football, and particularly English football, there are five levels of football in England (five "leagues"). The lowest league, the Nationwide Conference, is semi-professional (pub teams, weekend players, generally not paid for play but probably sponsored) and the highest level is the Premier League where players make as much or more than NFL players.
The FA Cup is a many-tiered, season-long tournament that allows teams from every league to compete against one another. In the latter stages of the competition, the Premier League teams enter - it's equivalent to being given a bye in the first couple of rounds.
Over the years there have been some famous upsets where Premier League sides were beaten by teams from a much lower level.
I thought one was in the making this evening.
When I joined the game (about 20 mins in), Luton Town (League One) were tied with Liverpool, the European Champions, 1-1. To put that into perspective, Luton town is 26 places down in the standings from Liverpool. In the English system the bottom three teams in each League are demoted to the league beneath and the top three teams of the league beneath are promoted every season. It will be a long and hard slog for Luton Town to make it to the top of League One and then survive in the Premier League.
By half-time, they were up 2-1. Then shortly after half-time, their keeper blocked a penalty try and they got their own penalty (unfairly given, IMHO) and scored, making it 3-1.
But Raffa Benitez must have given his men a great talking to at half-time because Liverpool has stormed back to score three successive brilliant goals to make it a 4-3 lead.
I'm on the edge of my seat, and quite happy that Luton Town may not be giant killers this evening. It would have been too embarrassing.
Though I've got to say that they've played damn well so far.
Posted by artandscience at January 13, 2006 12:42 AM