The final curtain comes down on the English domestic season today with what promises to be a cracking FA Cup final between this season’s great rivals.
And, if the prospect of Manchester United and Chelsea battling it out for the greatest cup prize in world football wasn’t enough, the match will be the first proper game to be held at New Wembley. (A quick aside: how old will New Wembley have to be exactly before we can drop the ‘new’ bit?)
All season these two teams have been at each other’s throats and, at one stage there was the unusual possibility of the two competing with each other for all three domestic honours as well as the Champions League.
The European element of that equation was removed at the semi-final stage when both crashed out of the competition, but the domestic side of the equation is very much still on with the current score standing at one trophy apiece.
In a way that makes today’s match the decider, although I am pretty sure both clubs would rather have taken the league title than the two cups.
Still, there is plenty of pride at stake today as well as the prestige of being the first team to win the FA Cup since it returned to Wembley. (Hey look, no ‘new’.)
On paper you would be hard pressed to decide between the two. Having said that, Chelsea are suffering from quite an extensive injury list which may just give Sir Alex and his boys the edge.
Ronaldo will be fresh from scooping yet more awards – this time from football writers – and he will also be keen to ram Jose’s words down his throat after the Portuguese manager said he hoped Ronaldo would stay on his feet.
The only reason I can see for Jose to say this is that he believes that if Ronaldo dives he may injure Robben or Drogba who would have still been on the floor from a previous dive.
Joking aside, this could be one of the all time great FA Cup finals. My prediction, for what it’s worth, would be for an extra time win for United. Then again, what do I know?
Legal action
The legal action has started. Hope lives on. We could still be in the Premier League next season after all.
However, this faint glimmer of hope is actually causing me more restless nights than straight, uncomplicated relegation would have done.
Just to give you an idea of the turmoil my mind is in, this is how my thought process has been meandering on a typical morning of late.
“Ah. Good. Thursday. Just a couple more days to the weekend. Who are we playing this week? Oh wait. The season is over. Three months to wait. But at least we are in the top flight. But no, hand on. We got relegated on the last day. How did Danny Webber manage to hit the post? Didn’t Warnock look wet? Oh yes, he’s quit as well hasn’t he. Hang on. There is legal action to be taken. We might not go down after all. But we still don’t have a manager. And Sepp Blatter is on our side in which case we must be wrong. Do we really want to stay up for legal reason? Well, there is a lot of money at stake… coffee!!”
Without sounding overly dramatic, at least if you are definitely relegated you can grieve for a few days, come to terms with it and get on with thinking about next season in a lower division.
As it stands though, the Blades are still in the denial phase and grieving is still way down the list of emotions we need to get through.
The general consensus among the media at the moment appears to be that the legal action might just actually be successful. The case for having the original decision either overturned or a new ruling put into place seems to be strong.
And, despite the fact that I will probably feel guilty about it for months afterwards, I am keeping my fingers very much crossed on this one.
I don’t think I could go back to listening to them on the radio every week.
Lewis Hamilton
Sweet comment of the week comes from new Formula 1 starlet Lewis Hamilton who showed that, despite being the next big thing to hit the sport, he is still a child at heart.
“We recently bought a PS3 and we go the new F1 game, although it’s last year’s drivers. I am looking forward to the new one coming out so I can be me,” he said.
And there was me thinking computer games were all about escaping from real life.
Michael Owen
And chant of the week has to go to the Newcastle fans who finally lost their patience with Michael Owen when he was stretchered off yet again last weekend.
“We want our money back!” they sang, for very understandable reasons.
Sadly you would imagine the chances of them getting it from another club are very limited. Who would pay good money for a world class player who only manages 60 minutes a season?
Apart from Newcastle, that is…
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