Well, it would seem this tournament has seen a bit of a shift in attitude towards the players and it will continue to do so while they continue to stumble.

Broadsheet, if not quite tabloid, opinion appears to be moving towards vilifying the ring leaders in this pathetic England team.  The general consensus being, ‘oh stop making excuses and grow a pair, you overpaid sensitive nancy boys’.  For too long now these pampered half-people have been blaming others or searching hard for excuses with which to pass off their failure and in doing this seem to forget that the fans expeect glorious failure but would rather avoid weak-willed, submission, lack of application and competence.  The players milk goodwill, act with wilful self interest and, astonishingly, also with excessive arrogance and delusion.

‘Clear the air talks’?  You’re presumably having a laugh?  The only air that really needs clearing is the hot stuff that emanates, permanently, from every robotic member of this bloated, media trained whiny squad.  There is something to be said for ensuring all England players are ‘in a good moment’, as Fabio might say, but there is a line where good preparation becomes pandering to their every whim.  This pandering is what they get day in / day out at club level and that clearly turns affable young men into monstrous sulking ogres with a whole bag of frozen Iceland chips on their shoulders.  It is never their fault, at club level it is always the ref, the opposition, bad luck, the fans getting on their backs etc etc.

The Premiership player is not programmed to accept responsbility, there are almost no consequences to even the worst actions. These delicate little flowers (delicate when it suits them, that is) want to talk and have their point heard, which is fine but the talk is cheap, it is rarely backed with action. And the talk of the England squad member is the most bargain bucket of any footballer at the bst of times.   As Rooney, seemingly now the second or third most deluded of these pound shop moaners, showed how completely out of touch he now is by complainaing of boos after the Algeria game.  Is it impossible for such cosseted individuals to accept or understand the reasons why they are booed?  As has been pointed out by many better commentators than I, they were booed because a lot of people had spent a lot of money and taken a lot of holiday to watch these players have a decent tournament, in line with expectation.  They don’t expect this bunch of players to win the World Cup but they do at least hope highly paid and trained professionals, who perform brilliantly for club, can manage the simple tasks like effort and competence.  The vast majority of England’s team have, seemimgly, been unable to.

But yet, we know, of course, that none of this failure is the footballer’s fault, we don’t understand. Outwardly they talk the talk but it’s what they have been told to say. The extra stuff that leaks out gives them away.  Excuses excuses, always the same.  First it was the altitude, then it was the ball, then it was press intrusion, now it’s when the team is picked and how it’s picked and how they train – allegedly.  Sorry chaps, it may well, minutely, be some of those things but it can’t be the manager’s methods.  After all, throughout qualifying, when you were winning, you loved them, he was a breath of fresh air, you loved the discipline of knowing who was boss.  Remember? He is doing very little different now.

I am uncertain how any of these factors can explain how Rooney goes from being a player with the best touch in England to a player unable to control the simplest of passes. I do know that the carping is endemic and must stop in order for anything t improve. Part of me hopes that England get knocked out on Wednesday, celebrating the success of this bunch of ingrates would require serious compromise.  At least if they get knocked out Fabio will resign and then unleash almighty vengeance by exposing the ludicrous demands, expectations and fragile egos of this hapless bunch of cuntbeaks.

Will it change anything? I suspect not but it might lead to more of a tabloid swing towards blame of players, rather than the likely Bolognese Head that will appear when we lose.  Fabio, like many of his immediate predecessorsget somne flack for the eneormous pile of cash they get to manage an international team. They clearly have to, it’s danger money in order to soften the blow of having to with these egomaniancs.

Like Fabio’s, the management style of the last three or four England managers has come under the spotlight after perceived player criticism.  Given the vast majority of those managers had a decent record one can only assume some other force is at play, maybe the players are not as good as they think they are or the FA is constantly employing the wrong men.  The latter is feasible but both Sven and Fabio were internationally renowned.  The former, however, is quite clearly a trend.  It’s funny that the same core of twats keeps having issues with managers’ style but yet only when they aren’t winning.

As is becoming the pattern, the players are now taking stick for being useless and they’ve clearly decided to castrate themsleves with the reason that it is because Fabio picks his team too late.   Much is made of the courage of the English footballer but it’s rarely in evidence in psychological terms in an England camp.  Long gone are the days when Psycho or Butcher (or even beckham!) will step up and take the lead by example.  This courage may sometimes manifest itself physically but where are the genuine guts, where are the massive cojones, where is the self respect, where is the pride?  There was very little of it on show in the last week.

Do we really want England to win the World Cup?  Can we really celebrate this bunch?  All will be forgotten of course, in that event, but the core of this team can easily be perceived as rotten.  John Terry, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard,  Ashley Cole and Wayne Rooney keep having the same old problems, it is becoming increasingly clear the people with the problem are the players and not the manager, or the ball, or the altitude … It is not even necessarily because they aren’t good enough, which they might not be, it’s simply because they are maladjusted young men who have been almost dehumansied by their clubs, the big clubs.  They are insufficiently balanced human beings and cannot cope with this scenario.

In my eyes, the only way to  change this is for Premier League managers to stop pandering to these millionaires, stop making excuses for them, stop protecting them in the face of the obvious error. Well, given that the manager is always the one who get’s the owner’s blame for failure, i can’t see why the player would take any notice o fthe manager so it has to come down to the owner. Except he’s not English, has lot sof money invested and wants blood, he doesn’t give a shite.

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In a short postscript I would just like to bash my usual target.  You’ll notice that it’s not just Terry and England in this tournament.  Deco’s had a pop at Key Hair Osh.  Anelka has clashed with Domenech … OK, Domenech is bonkers and Blanc was perhaps foollishly named his successor before this tournament began but he is still the manager and, whether you like him or not, presumably you have some professional pride and actually want to win the World Cup?  Or maybe not. My point being that these players all play for the same club team. And, talking of Terry, is this man the most deluded of all?.  Stripped of the England captaincy for nailing the mother of team mate’s child, he think he’s the obvious choice of leader to lay down a challenge to the England manager. He’s the manager John, do as you’re told and get on with it or go home.

Anti-Modern-Football.

Can anyone except Chelsea and Portsmouth fans really be arsed to watch this year’s cup final, or even read a piece about whether anyone can really be arsed about this year’s cup final?

No neutral really likes Chelsea and just as many are now sympathy fatigued by the shambles of Portsmouth. I suspect most would like to see a Pompey win but so few believe it possible they are unlikely to tune in unless the country is pounded with enough ash to make leaving the house impossible.

What’s it got going for it? Well, for a start there’s the lovely Ashley Cole … oh, hang on, we’ve been here before so let’s FFWD to Pompey … erm … why bother, it’s all been said.

Or has it? It’s easy to slate Chelsea and we certainly have in the past but what about Carlo? What about Joe Cole? What about Kalou? Where’s the harm there?

Among football’s many bankers, Joe is up there with the Co-Op for being one of the least offensive. Joe collects ornamental puppies and has a shelf full of pewter cups replete with dalmatian relief and corgi busts. When it comes to the FA Cup, Joe’s not had too much luck. He got subbed at half time in the 2007 final and busted up his knee against Southend in 2009. So, why not cheer for Joe the good guy? He looks a bit simple, he’s a bit small and Didier Drigba bullies him so we hope he scores a hatrick and gets his big face all over the papers.

Salomon Kalou is apparently another nice boy. Named after middle class walking shoes – a kind of Liberal sneaker, if you like, Sal is the friendly face of Chelsea’s front line. Kalou benefits from being neither Drogba nor Nicolas Anelka and so, of all the forwards at Chelsea, he finds himself in the unusual position of being the one no one despises.

And what of the gaffer? Well, he’s probably the only Premier League guv to pen and publish a treatise on dynamism and its role in the future of football. All the proceeds from his autobiography went towards research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis! Those last two bits aren’t piss takes either. Believe it or not. This man deserves better than the players, owners and fans of this west London rabble.

The make up of Pompey’s transient team on matchday is more difficult to predict but we suspect recalls for Guy Whittingham, Martin Kuhl and Alans Knight and Biley, while more established stars can’t play because they would have to be paid.

Guy was an Admiral in the navy but after he retired he was more famous for being manager at Newport IoW and AFC Newbury both of whom nearly went bust under his tenure. He then rejoined Pompey as a coach and they promptly went into administration under the weight of insuring Guy’s vast cache of militaria. Whats not to like about the armed forces these days?

While playing for Pompey Alan Biley was in glam rock ensemble The Sweet and who doesn’t like pop classic ‘Blockbuster’? Martin Kuhl is cool.

We’ll not be watching this tedious dullfest where no one wins but as we are The Real FA Cup, we thought we should make a small effort. Instead we’re going to sit in a darkened gimp room with Sloth from Goonies and a pile of meeowmeeow. But we don’t need to watch because we know Lily Allen will be watching and she will no doubt sit and weep as her beloved Pompey succumb to the Chelsea machine.

Little fanfare will greet the six clubs who kick off this year’s festival on Friday the 14th August, which is a shame, but this website seeks to polish the trumpets, parp the trombones and generally give the less wealthy the opportunity to compose their own symphony of football. Get used to it, I shall crowbar many more of those in over the next few months

So, what does this year hold? You can put money on the magic of the cup continuing as the hardy perennial. What is the magic of the cup? It’s impossible to define, there is no over arching magic, everyone’s magic is different and personal.

Magic to me might well be the big-4-free affair of Bolton .v. Hull in the semi final, it certainly will be to the respective fans. I will thank god, or Roger Osborne as he is more affectionately known, it isn’t Chelsea against Man Utd, although of course that will be the other semi. But the nay-sayers will, no doubt, should the unlikely happen, moan about the lack of glamour in Hull .v. Bolton. Neither are ‘good’ enough to satisfy the bling lust of the average armchair fan but yet neither are they lowly enough to satisfy the ‘magic’ lust from the same armchair.

The big 4 semi though will of course be billed as game of the round, clash of the titans, prime time, SPLENDID SUNDAY and, of course, one will be the ‘eventual winners’. And the magic in that is where exactly? And herein lies the problem with the FA Cup and it’s relationship with modern fans and the modern media. Both would like a lower league side to get to the final but when they do it’s a shame they are going to get hammered, or if two lower league sides get to the final it’s not glamorous enough. Enough! Please, make up your mind. Do you want the magic or do you want Cristal and platinum plated teeth?

The real magic is rarely to be found in the final, the semi final and infrequently in the quarters. So where does this mystery lurk? We here at therealfacup are not battle hardened FA Cup experts but, if our experience last season is anything to go by, the magic lies in the first seven rounds. It’s the undiluted but half expected joy of Havant fans wryly predicting ‘it’s happening again’ after beating Crawley. It’s Oxhey Jets just being there, seeing as though they’ve only existed for about 30 years. And it’s hearing what it means to the players as you stand next to the touchline.

You can’t really describe these things, you have to experience them yourself and be one of the few hundred that will. A few more might read about that magic on blogs like this but only if the club responsible for that magic starts nudging the 3rd round will the comfily placed, judgemental millions hear about that magic via the conduit of a commentator who has read about it on a blog like this. Or, a commentator who has got their researcher to read about it on a blog like this.

To dredge up … errr … a thing … if a tree falls down in a wood and no one hears it, does it actually make a sound? That sound is the magic of the FA Cup. Of all the billions of magical noises that will be made in or about the FA Cup this season, the majority of the sounds will not be heard. Get out there and listen to them or they won’t actually have happened.

I have to admit I wasn’t really looking forward to this one, even if it was MY team. I dislike Chelsea more than I dislike Norwich and completely concurred with the ‘anti modern football’ flag clearly evident at the ground.

The Slug & Lettuce near the ground was rammed with Town fans high on the smack of a Big Four club, so much so I couldn’t find who I was supposed to meet. The beach balls were fun. What a morgue of an abortion of a ground of a haemorrhage of fans. I do have some rose tinted spectacles when it comes to football but Chelsea is all that is wrong with the game and part of the reason I wanted to watch some real stuff in the FA Cup and at non-league grounds. The gate Nazis frisked us upon entry, the back-packed, lager wallahs prowled the stands fleecing the gullible of their hand earned dollaz and the Chelsea fans sat there munching on crab salads or moaning about Scolari.

Ipswich were probably going to get killed here but they were going down singing, a rarity for Ipswich fans, at home games at least. It took Chelsea only 15 fairly dreary minutes to unlock Ipswich’s rearguard and it wasn’t the greatest of defending when the circumstances required it. Ballack touched in an easy goal and the crowd burbled for 10 seconds or so. However, Ipswich were having their moments and were not phased, nor outclassed. In fact, as the half wore on Ipswich started causing Chelsea some worrying moments. After about half an hour a dangerous Owen Garvan free kick eluded several expensive defenders and Steve Bruce’s not quite as good son buried the loose ball to equalise.

And within a minute of the restart the game’s defining moment arrived. Garvan and Jon Walters combined well in the Chelsea half to tee up Danny Haynes just outside the box. The central defenders were out of position and Cech was closer to his line than he should have been, this was the chance that would have turned the Chelsea fans from silent to angry. Haynes blasted it over the bar, not even troubling the man in the Goretex mask. By the end of the half, it was quite even, Ipswich perhaps even shaded it thanks to their strong finish and clearer chances.

The second half was, quite predictably, an entirely different story, although it still had its to and fro and Chelsea couldn’t quite get the final ball or, when they did, the Ipswich defence mostly dealt with it. It took two moments of undisputed class for West London’s bored to come to a semblance of life and see off the spirited efforts of the Championship club.

Chelsea’s second goal came from a brilliant Ballack free kick, given for a foul on Anelka but caused largely due to the reappearance of a surprisingly intent Didier Drogba who came on and started running at and bullying defenders. It was just what Chelsea needed but the game still had an end to end element with Chelsea looking the more likely to add to their score. This they did when not so fat Frank lashed another freekick into the corner from a seemingly unfeasible angle. Viewed later, on whatever ITV’s excuse for a highlights program is, it looked even better. Stamford Bridge creaked with relief more than anything and Ipswich gave a good account of themselves but, in the end, football lost again and another nail was drilled into its coffin. I don’t have the stomach to follow Chelsea so this is the end for me unless I get a ticket to one of the other games.