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As an American fan of the English soccer scene, the FA Cup remains a weird outlier. It has some appeal, yes, but the aura and mystic the well-over 100-year knockout tournament seems to be lost in the Atlantic translation.
In any event, the FA Cup signals the traditional end of the English season and Saturday at London's Wembley Stadium Chelsea beat Everton 2-0 to send short-term coach Guus Hiddink out a winner. It was the fifth FA Cup for Chelsea.
Everton, a scrappy underdog that a neutral like myself can get behind, got off to a dream start, with Louis Saha ripping a goal less than a minute into the match.
However if the first minute belonged to the plucky Toffees, the other 89 probably went to Chelsea. The Blues -- who wore yellow on this day -- pulled level on Didier Drogba's header only 20 minutes after Saha's stunner.
As you might expect in the script, Frank Lampard won it for Chelsea in the 72nd. Lampard collected the ball outside the area, lost his balance in front of the defense of Phil Neville and ripped a shot to the center of the net which Everton keeper Tim Howard couldn't handle at full, diving stretch.
It was an unfortunate turn for the New Jersey native, who had previously won an FA Cup with Manchester United in 2004. Could he have saved the shot? Hard to say. He did dive and seemed to get a finger tip on it, but not enough to parry it away. You do have to factor that Lampard is known for his rocket shots from that area, yet the English midfielder did stumble and almost lose possession of the ball so it's possible the shot caught Howard off guard or flat footed. Mainly the only issue is that the ball ended up more toward the center of the net than a top corner.
Put it this way, was it a stoppable shot? Probably. Was it an all-time howler? Probably not.
Hopefully Howard is able to shake off the loss in time for the U.S. qualifiers this week.
From my standpoint, it's too bad that Everton couldn't have held out. Coach David Moyes has done yeoman's work at the club in seven years, but has no trophies to show for it. While the FA Cup has been marginalized in recent years, it would have meant a lot for a club like Everton.
Meanwhile, for Cheslea, though they're celebrating now and happy to send Hiddink back to the Russian national team with a smile on his face, the FA Cup is nothing more than a mere consolation prize. The Blues fell short of their top priorities, namely the Premier Leauge and the Holy Grail that is the Champions League.
So in a lot of ways Chelsea's win feels like when you pull the Community Chest card in Monopoly for placing second place in a beauty contest. Yeah, it's nice to win the $10, but not exactly what you're gunning for.
