Which is the competition that exists in a state of permanent crisis again? As the Premier League drifts to a conclusion that has felt inevitable for several months, theFA Cuphas started spewing out classic after classic, storyline after storyline, games in which the emotions are raw and the jeopardy real. Maybe the polarities have flipped once in the new economic environment and this has become the main event once again.
You’d probably need a few more aspirational Championship sides to start taking the FA Cup more seriously before you made that argument too seriously but, equally, the Premier League’s middle-class is burgeoning. With the gulf to the second flight growing, they can afford to be a little less troubled by the prospect of relegation, while qualification for the Champions League remains a distant prospect. In the circumstances, the only viable goal for that tier of sides is to take the FA Cup seriously.
It may also be, alarming as the prospect is, that as overseas owners – seeking the revenue brought by once-a season fans and their insatiable desire for branded tat – begin to diminish the significance of season-ticket holders, that the FA Cup becomes the competition for the traditional fans. Let the tourists have the manicured glitz of the Premier League, and retain the grand old Cup, in all its rickety and random glory, for the nostalgists.
Other than the hot-dog fug that engulfed Wembley for much of the first half, this was a resolutely old-fashioned occasion. The only tradition that was missing was a relatively modern one: the preacher who stands on the concrete rampart to the left of Wembley Way spouting apocalypse and redemptive love. At the League Cup final he, for the first time, had a partner. Have they ridden off together into a golden evangelical sunset? Was he watching the pope’s funeral on TV? The possibility that he’s lost faith in the FA Cup is too awful to contemplate; if the FA Cup has lost the Wembley preacher, it really is doomed.
What was obvious was how much it mattered. Nobody saw the trudge up Wembley Way as a routine. The chatter was excited, the selfies gleeful. People bumped into acquaintances with warmth and expectation and a sense of bemused disbelief. In the ground it was extremely loud.
The nature of the FA Cup, with its six possible rounds for clubs in the top two divisions, is to offer simple narratives: heroes, villains, redemption, despair. The strongest of those storylines, perhaps, surrounded Jean-Philippe Mateta, who required 25 stitches in his ear after beingthe victim of a reckless foulby the Millwall goalkeeper Liam Roberts in the fifth round. He made his return in the win over Fulham in the quarter-final and played a key role at Wembley, despite missing a second-half penalty.
With the contraption protecting his ear allied to his moustache giving him the air of a raffish first world war flying ace, Mateta was a little unfortunate to have been judged to have fouled Ezri Konsa as he bundled him off the ball before beating Emi Martínez after 29 minutes. It was then his pass that teed up Ismaïla Sarr for the second goal, but more generally he led the press superbly. The penalty aberration meant this was not the perfect day for him; that, perhaps, is to come in the final.
There’s an unavoidable tendency at this stage of the season to blame any flaw on tiredness; what would in October just have been a mistake or a poor performance becomes instead an inevitable consequence of fatigue. But whether it was a result of weariness or not, there was a clear sense of Villa struggling to deal with the intensity of Palace.
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The whipped finish from Eberechi Eze for the opening goal was superb, but it was created by Sarr closing down Pau Torres as he was placed under pressure by Lucas Digne’s pass. For the second, similarly, a brilliant finish followed Villa being caught in possession, Youri Tielemans losing out to Adam Wharton.
At half-time, with Palace one-up, it felt as though it could be one of the great semi-finals. As it turned out, Villa didn’t have the energy to make it close, and the overriding feature of the second half was Palace’s ruthlessness in finishing the tie off. It will be their third FA Cup final and their second since their return to the Premier League in 2013. If they can produce a performance of similar organisation and aggression, there’s no reason why, in a season that broughtNewcastle’s first domestic trophy for 70 years, will almost certainly bring Liverpool’s second league title in 35 years and could bring Paris Saint-Germain’s first Champions League, they couldn’t win their first ever major trophy.
If they do, they would be the second first-time FA Cup winners in five years. The magic, perhaps, is returning.