Do FA Cup Minnow’s Hold Mental Advantage?

With the FA cup taking place over the weekend fans and punters alike are all set for an upset. What is the FA cup without a minnow making it big, surpassing expectations and knocking out a big gun?

In this weekend of football there is more than enough opportunities with the lower league teams to start what could be a great success, with matches such as Cheltenham visiting spurs at white hart lane, Fleetwood Town playing hosts to Blackpool, Salisbury City facing Sheffield United and Tamworth travelling to Goodison Park.

Lesser teams have nothing to lose, zero pressure and generally are there to enjoy the experience. What you often find with teams playing without any overshadowing pressures is that they perform better and to the best of their ability.

Take most recently Barnsley who managed to reach the FA cup semi-final in 2008; beating Premier league’s Liverpool and Chelsea on route.

No longer is the FA cup dedicated to the top four clubs in English football with the trend being broken by Portsmouth, Cardiff, Everton, and Stoke.

These sort of shock results are impossible to predict with often the ‘lesser’ team using the cup as a positive distraction to a faltering domestic campaign which suggests Macclesfield Town has a real opportunity against Bolton of whom surely have to ensure all their commitments are to avoid relegation from the premiership.

Moss Rose is a small stadium which I am sure will be buzzing come 3pm on Saturday 7th January, Statistics suggest Macclesfield town are most dangerous come the last 15 minutes of matches which may be enough for them to set out to shut up shop until then.

It is expected for some premiership teams to make alterations to their teams but on paper will still have the stronger squad, but of course football isn’t played on paper and with the beauty of the FA cup anything is possible.