The Football Cup, or FA-Cup for short, is the most important cup competition in England and the oldest football competition in the world.

The tournament represents the culture and history of football in England.

Before 2000, the FA Cup was considered a more important competition by English fans than the top flight, but in the new millennium, many people think that the FA Cup is not as important as it used to be, and they believe that the Premier League and the Champions League are much more valuable than the FA Cup.

There are two reasons for this.

One is the impact of the Champions League, the giants can make a lot of money from the Champions League, so those games are more important to them than the FA Cup, the FA Cup is just a cup competition, even if they win the championship, it is only the championship, except for a weak qualification for the Champions League for the giants, there is no other benefit at all.

Then there is the influence of coaches from other countries, such as the French, who are not very good in the French Cup, so they take it for granted that the FA Cup in England is not meaningful.

For these two reasons, the impact of the FA Cup has waned.

But for England fans, the FA Cup is still very meaningful, it is a tradition of English football, it is full of cultural and historical heritage, and it is an extremely glorious history. Almost every FA Cup game has a special significance, and many England fans will forget that their team has beaten a tough opponent in the league, but they will not forget that they have won against a strong team in the FA Cup.

Nations cups seem to be a hotbed of underdogs. According to the FA Cup format, the winner or loser is a decision, and the opponent, home and away are all decided by draw, and in such a system, there are often underdogs in which a lower-league club defeats a higher-level league club.

Every year the FA Cup starts in August.

Before the Premier League was formed, the top league clubs also played in the FA Cup from the first round. However, considering the Europa League, leagues, league cups and other competitions, the senior league teams participate in the FA Cup from the first round. The schedule was so dense that the FA made some changes to the competition, with Premier League and League One teams starting from the third round after Christmas.

The third round, which is the round of 32. There will be 64 teams participating.

In addition to the 44 teams in the Premier League and League One, only 20 teams were selected to continue the competition in the first two rounds of the lower league clubs before Christmas, which shows the brutality of the FA Cup elimination.

After the match against Norwich, Derby County began preparations for the FA Cup.

Wan Sheng has put a lot of preparation for the game, and this is because club chairman Jie Smith has not had good luck, and Derby County has drawn a Premier League team, Tottenham Hotspur, and it is playing away.

Wan Sheng is still very impressed with Tottenham Hotspur.

When he left Manchester United, he first went to Manchester City to get a job as a coach. After the defeat, he went straight to north London, Tottenham Hotspur FC. That experience was not a good memory, and Tottenham Hotspur youth manager Alex Ingellethorpe did not even read his resume, only knew that he was Chinese and rejected him outright.

That guy was racist.

No matter where you are, a guy who is racist will never make a good impression, especially as a target of discrimination, Wansheng doesn't feel very good about that guy. He thought it would be difficult for him to cross paths with Alex Inglethorpe in his life, because the other party was only a youth team manager. As long as he is not in charge of Tottenham, he will naturally not deal with Alex Inglethorpe, but he didn't expect things to change - now Derby County are playing Tottenham Hotspur, and Alex Inglethorpe happens to be one of the acting managers.

In fact, Tottenham Hotspur have not fared well this season. Tottenham Hotspur sacked manager Manuel Hoddle in September due to the team's disastrous results.

Hoddle spent two seasons at Tottenham, finishing 10th in the Premier League last season, and spent £11 million to bring in three strikers – Postiga, Canute and Zamora – at the start of the season, but none of them performed as well as they could have done.

"Glenn [Hoddle] and I spoke tonight. After two disappointing seasons, another important investment was made in the summer to give us a better chance of success this season. Unfortunately, at the start of the season we had our worst record since the start of the Premier League. ”

After sacking Hoddle, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy said.

"Coupled with the lackluster results in the second half of last season, the current lack of progress and any noticeable improvement is unacceptable. This is a time of crisis and I and the board should have absolute confidence in the manager's success, but unfortunately we can't accept that. It was not an easy decision but we are determined to see the success of the club and we must move forward now. ”

Tottenham were now third from bottom in the Premier League at the time, having previously picked up just four points from six games in charge.

"Glenn occupies a special place at the club and today's decision doesn't change that he is one of our greatest players. He will always be welcomed at Egret Lane, and I would like to personally thank him for his determination and promise, and wish him well. We're going to find a new manager, it's a crucial appointment and we're going to make the best choice with the time necessary. ”

Shortly after Daniel Levy's speech, Tottenham Hotspur FC announced caretaker manager David Pulit would be joining youth director Alex Inglethorpe as Tottenham Hotspur manager on an interim basis.

The two have been in charge of the team together for three months, and with a fairly gorgeous lineup, as well as good adjustment and leadership skills, the two have made Tottenham Hotspur's results improve a lot, but now Tottenham Hotspur is still in the bottom five of the league and still not completely out of the relegation circle.

Now in the FA Cup, Derby County meet Tottenham Hotspur, and Wan Sheng also meets Alex Inglethorpe again.

This may be fate

'The purpose of our FA Cup is to try to get as good as possible and I won't give up on this Cup. Our first opponent was not very good, Tottenham Hotspur, a Premier League powerhouse, they are not very good at the moment, but they have a strong squad. But I still want to beat this opponent, and I have the strength of you! ”

Wan Sheng said solemnly to the players.

"This is the English FA Cup, nothing is impossible, let alone Tottenham Hotspur, even if it is against Manchester United and Arsenal, we will try to fight hard! That's the way the FA Cup is, it's normal for teams in the lower leagues to knock out teams in the higher leagues, and we try to do that too! I'm sure you can do it! ”

Hearing Wan Sheng's words, the players were a little surprised.

Before participating in the League Cup, Wan Sheng just said, "It's good to be a training soldier", but I didn't expect to get to the FA Cup, but it was required to play as well as possible, especially those foreign players, such as Ribery, Ziegler and others, don't quite understand why Wan Sheng should resolutely play the FA Cup, but most English players still understand that the FA Cup is of great significance to English clubs, and this is not a cup competition that is easy to give up.

But the first game against Tottenham Hotspur doesn't matter what the current results of Tottenham Hotspur are, it is definitely a real strong team, they are the sworn enemies of Arsenal in the north of London, and they are fully capable of wrestling with Arsenal.

Can they defeat such an opponent?

Wan Sheng looked at everyone's table xiàn and said seriously, "There is nothing to be surprised at, I hope everyone can try their best to express xiàn." Our opponents are strong, but it's important to remember that we're strong too! At the beginning of the season, I told you to go for the championship, how many of you really believed it? ”

The players bowed their heads, they really didn't believe it at the time, after all, the team was still relegated last season.

"But now?" Wan Sheng's voice took a turn and continued, "Now we are number one in the league!" We've shown with results that we're a strong team, but now it's just Tottenham Hotspur in the FA Cup, is it harder to beat them than to top the league? You think about it and know which is more difficult, we only need one game, 90 minutes, 90 minutes, and the victory is ours! ”

'It's interesting to think about how happy the fans would be if we beat Tottenham Hotspur in the FA Cup, how surprised the media would be!'

"I love the feeling of winning, especially against a strong team! I think you'll love it too, am I right! Everybody loves to win, right? ”

"To" the players sporadically voiced.

Wan Sheng yelled, "Say it again! We all love to win, right! ”

"Yes!"

This time it's a lot neater, and it's a lot louder.

Wan Sheng nodded with satisfaction, "You have to remember that football games are about the pursuit of victory, we have to take every opponent seriously, as long as we participate in the game, victory is the only goal, I want to defeat every opponent, I want to win every championship, you definitely want to!" It may be a bit too extravagant, but we have to do our best to achieve this goal, so that we can do our best! ”

"It's Tottenham Hotspur who stand in our way right now, we're going to beat them, we're going to knock them out and show everybody that we can get rid of the Premier League teams too!"

The day's training ended with Wan Sheng's impassioned words. (To be continued) R580