Biggest FA Cup shocker of all time

[L4Dawg]

Defending champion Crystal Palace loses to 6th-tier Macclesfield 2-1 in massive FA Cup upset

Minnow Macclesfield beat title holder Crystal Palace 2-1 in one of the biggest upsets in FA Cup history to reach the fourth round

abcnews.go.com

If you aren’t familiar with the FA Cup every member club of the English FA is eligible for this tournament. It’s something like 730 teams. Crystal Palace from the Premier League is the defending champion. Macclesfield Town plays in the equivalent of rookie league baseball.

 

[patdog]

Defending champion Crystal Palace loses to 6th-tier Macclesfield 2-1 in massive FA Cup upset

Minnow Macclesfield beat title holder Crystal Palace 2-1 in one of the biggest upsets in FA Cup history to reach the fourth round

abcnews.go.com

If you aren’t familiar with the FA Cup every member club of the English FA is eligible for this tournament. It’s something like 730 teams. Crystal Palace from the Premier League is the defending champion. Macclesfield Town plays in the equivalent of rookie league baseball.

Crazy. And Macclesfield hosted. To put it into perspective, this is like the Mississippi Mud Monsters hosting the LA Dodgers in a real game for a real championship. But to be fair, the PL teams usually rest their starters for this round of the FA Cup. Still a huge upset.

 

[QuaoarsKing]

So, it's 64 teams in this round, and completely random who gets matched up with whom, and which team is at home is also random, right? No seeding at all?

 

[L4Dawg]

Crazy. And Macclesfield hosted. To put it into perspective, this is like the Mississippi Mud Monsters hosting the LA Dodgers in a real game for a real championship. But to be fair, the PL teams usually rest their starters for this round of the FA Cup. Still a huge upset.

They do, but their U23 teams should dominate a team like Macclesfield. That’s why I love the FA Cup. The upsets usually aren’t THAT big, but it regularly serves them up. The other thing I love is fairly regularly a minnow like Macclesfield will draw other minnows and make it to the later rounds and wind up hosting Arsenal or going to Anfield. Today you got both! Watch the video on ESPN and look at Macclesfield‘s stadium. It’s a typical old school non-league English stadium. That was like the Cincinnati Bengals playing at the Pit in Shannon.

 

[L4Dawg]

So, it's 64 teams in this round, and completely random who gets matched up with whom, and which team is at home is also random, right? No seeding at all?

Correct. There have already been a bunch of rounds, most of them before the proper first round. Different level teams join at different rounds. This is the round the top clubs of the EPL join. I always love seeing a truly big club having to slum it at a non-league stadium. Some of those are nice and new but just small. Some are like Macclesfield.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

Macclesfield Town plays in the equivalent of rookie league baseball.

One quibble. Macclesfield FC is a phoenix club that replaced Macclesfield Town when it ended operations while in the National League in 2020.

They’ve had three promotions in four seasons.

 

[L4Dawg]

If you have ESPN+ League Two Cambridge United is hosting Championship side Birmingham right now. Birmingham is up 2-0 right before the half. That’s a high single A team hosting a triple A team.

 

[L4Dawg]

One quibble. Macclesfield FC is a phoenix club that replaced Macclesfield Town when it ended operations while in the National League in 2020.

They’ve had three promotions in four seasons.

Correct, forgot about that. I was still calling them Macclesfield Town. I remember when that happened. That’s still a massive upset though. Rangers In Scotland are technically a phoenix club as well. It’s amazing a club like that could go under. Then again, Liverpool came very close to it before FSG rescued them .

 

[patdog]

Correct, forgot about that. I was still calling them Macclesfield Town. I remember when that happened. That’s still a massive upset though. Rangers In Scotland are technically a phoenix club as well. It’s amazing a club like that could go under. Then again, Liverpool came very close to it before FSG rescued them .

That’s what no salary cap can do. A poorly managed team can spend itself right out of existence. It’s the ultimate survival of the fittest. There’s weak guardrails in place to limit spending to a percent of revenues to theoretically prevent this going forward. But I bet we haven’t seen the last club fail.

 

[curseddawgs]

I’m sure the logistics make it impossible but baseball should do something similar with MLB and MiLB