Home or Away?

It’s FA Cup weekend, and while I didn’t catch any games, I did enjoy a few highlights in the late afternoon.

For those who don’t know, the FA Cup is an English soccer/football knockout tournament open to every club in the country. This week was the Third Round, the round when the Big Dogs enter the comp, and there are always massive mismatches.

I was thinking this afternoon, if you were a massive underdog, would you prefer to play Home or Away?

If you play at Home, it’s a special experience. I watched the highlights of Tamworth (stadium capacity 4k, 16th in League 5) play against Tottenham (stadium capacity 62k, 12th Premier League). Tottenham’s captain earns 190k pounds a week, Tamworth’s captain works as an Insurance Appraiser for one of the local construction companies. But for 90 minutes, you get to welcome them to your backyard, and everyone in the town is rooting for you to cause an upset. Home ground advantage extends beyond the field as well, as the photos below demonstrate:

Compared to:

However, there is also a very special experience to being the away team. Accrington Stanley (currently 19th in the 4th Division, town population 34k) played Liverpool (1st in Premier League, stadium capacity 61k), and while they lost 5-nil, the chance to go to Anfield, go to the change rooms, be on TV, play in front of more than your parents and a few seagulls, and compete next to global superstars is such a wonderful thing.

The magic of the Cup is still alive and well in this household.