Magic of the FA Cup

The ‘Magic of the FA Cup’ takes centre stage this weekend as this famous competition pushes the regularly scheduled EPL to the backburner. For those of you not familiar with this competition, it has a mystique about it unprecedented anywhere in world soccer. Every football club playing within the English Football Association pyramid system can enter the competition. As a result, it attracts entries ranging from small market teams who average attendance is 15-20 spectators per game all the way through to the top of the food chain and Manchester United who draws 75,000 screaming fans to Old Trafford every home game. The Preliminary rounds start at the very beginning of the season in late August with the ‘big EPL boys’ entering the mix during the Third Round Proper in January. Every small team dreams of winning their way through to that round and then pulling a big club out of the hat since that is the very magic this grand old competition is built on because the luck of the draw prevails without a bracket or seeding. All the clubs participating in each round are given a number on a ball and placed into a velvet bag where they’re drawn out one by one to create fixtures. This repeats all the way until the Semi Finals when the winners of the Quarterfinal pairings progress to the final stages.

I suppose the reason I’ve given such a lengthy explanation of the way this competition is structured is because in past years its value has diminished across England. With the vast wealth bestowed on teams for staying in the Premiership outweighing the lure of European entrance (guaranteed for the winner), many smaller EPL teams have played weakened sides. This has led to calls for a drastic overhaul of the competition and some have even questioned its place in the current pantheon of English soccer. However, the two semi final line ups we have for us this weekend appear to have rekindled the public’s love for the competition. In Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, and Tottenham we have four of the traditional English powers. With the match-ups between Everton and Liverpool along with Chelsea against Tottenham, we have a Liverpool and London derby with a bid to the finals on the line. Both games will revive decade old rivalries since there’s no love lost between these intra-city foes.

Until recently, all the cup semi finals were played at neutral grounds across the country. However, for various reasons all semi finals have been moved to Wembley Stadium in North London. From a handicapping perspective, the FA Cup is always hard to examine. Its very nature leads to shocking results with players looking to put on a performance that will give them the limelight if only for a few fleeting moments. There is a common belief that the pitch, surroundings, and atmosphere of club games played at Wembley creates a draining environment for the players. This should lead to relatively high scoring games as player fatigue leads to more errors at the back creating scoring opportunities. The obvious question then becomes does this switch of venue to a big energy sapping stadium offer an exploitable handicapping angle in the total goals market?

As you often find, prevailing perception is not backed up by available statistics. Since Wembley has been used as a neutral venue for FA Cup Semi Finals, the goal stats are 10-5 in favour of the under 2.5 goals. I believe teams like to ‘feel each other out’ early on in these games looking to avoid the backbreaking mistake. You often get 20 minutes of gentle sparring before any real action occurs and even then teams are conscious that they do not want to concede the first goal in such a big game and play from behind. If you analyze the last ten meetings these clubs have played against one another as another factor, the under 2.5 goals is more the common outcome (6-4 in Chelsea/Tottenham and 7-3 Everton/Liverpool).

Both meetings between Chelsea and Tottenham this season produced low scoring defensive struggles. The meetings between Everton and Liverpool saw 2-0 and 3-0 wins for Liverpool but the 3-0 result was skewed by Everton’s abnormal personnel choices for the game. All the supporting data indicates there’s little promise of extensive goal mouth action this weekend. While that may not appeal to the casual fan looking for entertaining games, those of us who prefer to cash tickets by going under might be able to find investment opportunities in these snoozefests.