Vlog on the pitch duo Jon Bramley and Darcy Lambton think Manchester United will beat Chelsea on Wednesday but host Owen Wyatt is not so sure. (Although judging by the haircut he has already lost a bet this week.)

Who is your money on for the big clash in Moscow? Will Didier Drogba ignore the mind games and win the game just like the semi-final against Liverpool?

The boys touch on various other topics in a bumper issue this week. They review the FA Cup final before discussing Real Zaragoza’s relegation and the English playoffs.

Let us know your thoughts. Leave comments below or make your own video, load it up to youtube or wherever tagged “vlog on the pitch” and if we like it, we’ll put it up here.

Footballers. If we aren’t reading about their exploits on the pitch, more often than not we can read about their exploits off it. Much is speculation and the rest can’t be mentioned before the watershed, but as I recently read, it’s not always bad.

West Ham United striker Craig Bellamy is more used to finding himself in hot water rather than hot weather, but following a recent trip to Sierra Leone, the Wales international has formed the Craig Bellamy Foundation there.

Bellamy’s 600,000 pound football academy is set to include 14 new leagues, 68 new boys’ teams and employ 141 managers and coaches.

So it’s not all fast cars, big houses and sordid parties after all then? In fact, if the media turned their focus away from the usual suspects, they would see a whole host of top players participating in worthwhile causes.

Portsmouth’s Nwankwo Kanu formed the Kanu Heart Foundation after having surgery on a hole in his heart during his early playing days. His charity arranged treatment for 250 African children with heart problems in 2007 and hopes to help 1,000 more this year.

Reading’s Bobby Convey regularly visits the Royal Berkshire Hospital’s Lion Ward to spend time with sick children. He is not contracted or sponsored to do this and did the same thing earlier in his career while playing in the U.S. 

England international Frank Lampard is involved in a range of cancer charities, and has become an enthusiastic backer of Chelsea’s latest initiative with CLIC Sargent, Kick for Children with Cancer.

Speaking to the Telegraph newspaper about footballers ‘bad press’, Lampard said, “…People forget that we are young lads growing up. We all made mistakes. Life’s about learning from them. So many players I have come across are down-to-earth lads who want to help out.”

So should we give footballers a break? Or should more players be putting some of their efforts and mountains of cash into worthwhile causes?

Do you know of any players worthy of a mention? Let us know.

Neil Maidment, London

PHOTO: Wales’s Craig Bellamy in action against San Marino in a Euro 2008 qualifier Oct 17, 2007. REUTERS/Daniele la Monaca

“It was always my dream to play in an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley,” just doesn’t quite cut it and fans of teams chasing both domestic cups might struggle to sing: “We’re going to Wembley thrice.”

It’s just not right.

The FA may be contractually committed for the next 30 years to playing both semis as well as the final at their shiny new showpiece arena, but that does not mean we have to like it.

The weekend’s semis were both sold-out as almost 84,000 watched Portsmouth beat West Brom and Cardiff beat Barnsley and though most TV-watching neutrals were asleep by halftime in both games, those who turned up no doubt enjoyed their day out.

Which is what it should be like — for the final.

You play in the FA Cup to try to get to a Wembley final. It’s special. It always has been. Cup finals are sunny days in May and playing the semis there in April snowstorms devalues the main event and waters down the memories.

There was some justification for it when the FA broke with tradition by shifting Arsenal v Tottenham there in 1991. Other London grounds at the time had capacities that would have meant only around 20,000 fans of each team would have been able to attend and sending 40,000 north to Villa Park or Old Trafford seemed a bit daft.

Once the dam had broken the same arguments were used in 1993 and 94 when all four semis were at Wembley and again in 2000, the last year of the old stadium, when both were held there.

Now though, with grounds such as Old Trafford, the Emirates and Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium able to hold 60 or 70,000, there is no excuse.

Wembley could revert to being the special destination but, as ever in modern football, the finances take precedence and another piece of “the people’s game” is consigned to history.

PHOTO: A West Brom fan reacts after his team’s defeat against Portsmouth at Wembley, April 5, 2008. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

Spare a thought for cup-tied Jermain Defoe this weekend, forced to sit on the sidelines when Portsmouth play West Bromwich Albion in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley because of an antiquated rule the authorities should consider changing.

Defoe, who joined Portsmouth from Tottenham Hotspur just before the transfer window closed on January 31, played for his old club against Reading and Manchester United in the third and fourth rounds which ruled him out of the FA Cup for the rest of the season.

He also appeared in 18 Premier League matches for Spurs — but of course is not banned from playing in the same competition for Portsmouth. (One bizarre twist in that move was that because he technically joined Portsmouth from Spurs on a loan deal which was made permanent a few days later, he was not allowed to play against Spurs two weeks ago — but that’s another matter.)

The cup-tied rule was introduced decades ago to stop clubs buying up players who could boost their chances in the later rounds of the competition.

The rule has rarely been waivered, and I can only think of one example when it was. The FA allowed Stan Crowther and Ernie Taylor to play for Manchester United in the FA Cup after the Munich air disaster in 1958 even though both were cup-tied.

But these days, with the transfer window closing at the end of January, clubs are hardly likely to buy players just for the FA Cup. They are buying them for the league.

UEFA also say players who appear for one team in the Champions League or UEFA Cup cannot play for another in the same competition in the same season. Surely though, if you are allowed to play for two clubs in the same league in the same season, logically you should be able to play for two clubs in the same cup competition? (All Things Footie thinks the away goals rule is just as daft.)

I am sure West Brom are delighted Defoe will be on the sidelines at Wembley, but I think he should be leading Pompey’s front line there instead.

Mike Collett, London

PHOTO: Reading’s Nicky Shorey (L) challenges Defoe, then playing for Tottenham, during their FA Cup third round replay, January 15, 2008. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

So Kevin Fylan has poured scorn on this season’s FA Cup, saying romance was “the last word” he would choose to describe what’s happening in the competition. Well Kev, as we prepare for this weekend’s semi-finals, let me say I couldn’t disagree more.

I’ll admit I’m something of a footballing Luddite, one of those old-fashioned fans who laments the fact that the days are gone when clubs like Derby County, Nottingham Forest, Everton and Aston Villa won league titles. The days when supporters had a genuine affinity with players. The days when Sunderland, Southampton and West Ham could win the FA Cup.

Although it’s clearly not their top priority, I simply don’t agree with the assertion that the FA Cup doesn’t matter to the Big Four. One look at the Chelsea line-up that went down at Barnsley indicates how much they were up for the Cup. Sure, they rested Frank Lampard and Petr Cech, but it was by no means wholesale squad rotation and you only had to see the look on Avram Grant’s face as he trudged down the tunnel at Oakwell to see he was far from ambivalent about his team’s cup exit.

It was a similar story with Manchester United as they were beaten by Portsmouth. Sir Alex Ferguson’s post-match rant was not the work of a man happy to be knocked out of the FA Cup.

When I was a kid the FA Cup was the pinnacle of the football season. It’s scarcely believable that until 1983 it was the only domestic match to be shown live on TV during the football season, and the media build-up to the game would last for weeks.

One of the best days of my life was the FA Cup final of 1980, when my beloved West Ham beat the favourites Arsenal 1-0 at Wembley thanks to Trevor Brooking’s header.

On May 8 in 1980, two days before the final, it was my eighth birthday. My Dad had taken my brother Bill and me to Upton Park to most home matches during the season, as well as the FA Cup semi-final against Everton, but due to a complicated voucher scheme we were only eligible for two tickets for the final and, as the youngest, I was going to have to miss out.

I will never forget the morning of my birthday as the presents were handed out in my parents’ bedroom. Every few moments I would grab an innocuous looking envelope with my name on it, thinking it was merely another birthday card. My folks would take back the card, put it back on their dresser, and hand me another present. Eventually I was handed the mysterious envelope. When I opened it and saw a Cup final ticket I can honestly say that I have never felt such unadulterated joy. I can still remember the feeling of pure childish happiness as I ran around the room in a circle, shouting and punching the air.

All these years later that moment still brings a tear to my eye, sentimental old fool that I am. That’s why I love the FA Cup. And that’s  why it still matters to me, and to old-fashioned fans like me.

Twenty-six years later West Ham made it to the FA Cup final again, at the Millennium Stadium against Liverpool. Sitting in the stadium 10 minutes before kick-off with my father, my brother, and his two sons, I was overcome with an unexpected welling of emotion as ‘Abide with Me’ was sung across the stadium.

I found myself weeping, something I had never done before at a football match. The fact that my team couldn’t hold on to a 3-2 lead and lost the match on penalties was hard to swallow, but my overall memory of the day is one of sheer joy at having made it to another Cup final.

TV viewing figures will probably plummet for this year’s final as the Johnny-Come-Latelys who think that football began in 1992 decide to give it a miss. I’m sure that next year the old order will be restored and we can look forward to a Cup final stalemate like the Chelsea-Man United snorefest of 2007.

But I really don’t care because on May 17th we will see the People’s Final. I for one will watch every minute of it and I’ll revel in the fact that for one day I can pretend the FA Cup is still the most important knockout tournament in the world.

I can hardly wait.

Jim Drury is a reporter/producer for Reuters TV

PHOTO: Barnsely celebrate a goal against Chelsea, March 8, 2008. REUTERS/Nigel Roddis