Reuters Soccer Blog

Chambery’s French passion underlines renaissance of domestic cups

Fifth division Chambery’s stunning win over top-flight Sochaux to reach the French Cup quarter-finals has got a lot of people talking and I think it’s fair to say domestic cup competitions around Europe are enjoying a bit of a resurgence.

As this week proved with other games, Cup shocks are nothing new in France – something I knew before moving to Paris on Monday — but the fact newspapers and fans are stilll excited about Chambery’s run speaks volumes.

A packed little stadium for a game played in the midweek afternoon, a huge front page picture in L’Equipe and non-soccer fans mentioning the win in lifts all go to show that there is still magic in the Cup.

The FA Cup in England has taken a bit of a battering over recent years but minor league side Crawley Town being drawn at Manchester United in the fifth round and moneybags Manchester City needing 30 million pound striker Edin Dzeko to salvage a draw at third division Notts County has brought back a lot of romance.

In Italy, where the Italian Cup has been derided for years, top teams are suddenly playing their main sides in the competition and not rotating.

This is partly because of unusually stretched squads this season due to injuries but also Inter Milan’s treble last term showed how important the Cup could sometimes be. It’s also getting tight at the top of Serie A for Champions League places so a Europa League berth through the Cup could be very handy.

Real Madrid and Barcelona have been taking the King’s Cup very seriously and their predictable meeting in the final will be billed as one of the biggest ever battles between them given there is direct silverware at stake.

Was McCarthy taking the mick at Old Trafford?

Did Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Mick McCarthy damage the integrity of the Premier League or did he make a valid, pragmatic choice to help keep his side safe by playing a virtual reserve team that lost 3-0 at Manchester United on Tuesday?

Most Wolves fans felt cheated when they saw that the team he fielded at Old Trafford showed 10 outfield changes from the side that beat Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday with only goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann keeping his place.

They paid 42 pounds for a ticket as well as making the long trip from Wolverhampton to Manchester on a freezing night and most did not appreciate what they perceived to be a totally defeatist act by the manager.

The message the fans got was: “We’ve no real chance of beating United, so I’m keeping the first choice players for the important game with Burnley at the weekend — one we CAN win.”

McCarthy defended his action by saying: “They were all first-team squad players who played tonight, not reserves and I have to say there were some really good performances. That team did as well as we did against Arsenal and Chelsea.

“It was my decision and I took it and the responsibility lies with me. Burnley are having a good season and we have to be fully at it…I’m not prepared to get injuries before Sunday because then we have Liverpool, Manchester City and West Ham.

Friday afternoon question: Should domestic cups be scrapped?

Real Madrid were knocked out of the King’s Cup by third-tier Real Union this week and Chelsea lost to second division Burnley in the Carling Cup, but which sides were really celebrating?

Chelsea would much rather concentrate on the Premier League while Real need to focus on the Champions League after two defeats.

In Italy, the Coppa Italia is fast becoming one of the biggest jokes in football. The last 16, the first round where the big clubs enter, has been spread across a two-month period for various strange reasons.

Wednesday’s game between Udinese and Reggina was played in mid-afternoon and from the television pictures I could not see a single fan in the stadium. There were probably a few die-hards behind the camera but they saw one of the most error-ridden games in history.

The Cup is realistically the only trophy Udinese and Reggina can win this season and yet even they played reserve sides. 

Top players were also rested in the other domestic cups this week, which surely diminishes the achievements of the smallers sides who cause ‘upsets’ and don’t gain as much revenue as they used to now that most competitions are no longer over two legs. 

Simak sees (tomato) red

There are of course many ways to get sent off, but Jan Simak may be the first player to earn a red card for giving a referee the “Doppel Tomaten auf den Augen” (Two tomatoes on the eyes) gesture.

The Carl Zeiss Jena playmaker’s unfortunate ejection in the 51st minute of their German Cup semi-final match at Borussia Dortmund - when they were behind 1-0 but close to equalising – pretty much took the life out of what was until then a good game.

The relegation-threatened second division underdogs were putting up a great fight against Dortmund and had the Bundesliga side on the ropes. After Simak was sent off Dortmund got two late goals to win 3-0.

Perhaps Simak, a Czech, did not fully understand the impact in German of the gesture — covering his eyes with his fists. “Tomaten auf den Augen” (Tomatoes on the eyes) is a popular phrase in Germany to refer to referees who were blind to something obvious that happened in front of their eyes. Some newspapers even publish pictures of the referee with giant tomatoes covering their eyes after particularly daft decisions.

Or perhaps it was all just a cultural misunderstanding by the Czech. He didn’t realise German referee Manuel Graefe would feel insulted to the extent that he would give him a second yellow card just seconds after flashing him the first for his mild complaints about a foul.

There have been other misunderstandings lately. Hertha Berlin’s French-speaking Swiss coach Lucien Favre was able to avoid a suspension by convincing league officials that he did not make the insulting “bird” gesture (which in Germany usually means “I think you’re crazy”) to a referee in Hertha’s 1-1 draw at Dortmund a week earlier, as the referee had charged, while complaining about an erroneous red card that was then quickly rescinded.

Simak did not attempt such a defence.