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TSN Soccer Analyst

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Long before EA Sports created the immensely popular FIFA video games there was a board game that allowed players to take ownership of football teams during an FA Cup season.

Road to Wembley, later known as just Wembley, was a game dictated by dice that gave football clubs a better chance to reach the great old stadium for the FA Cup based on what league they were in.

The game had six different colored dice, which would be used to determine how many goals that team scored in the tie. If a team in the top division were drawn at home the owner of that team would use the red dice. This was the best one of the six in the game - featuring two 4's, a 3, 2, 1 and 0 – given the team a 50 per cent chance it would score three goals.

To recreate the magic of the FA Cup, where teams from lower leagues can be drawn against top clubs, and to allow true giantkilling acts for teams who were in the third or fourth tier, the game's rules dictated that those sides use the white dice when away from home. It featured two zeroes, two 1's but a 4 and a 5. More often than not the lower league club would be knocked out by the dice, as it should. However, some times you'd get massive shocks.

If you held ownership of that lower league club and you beat the big giant on their pitch it was a fantastic feeling, one very difficult to create on a modern day video game where better teams just had better opportunities and skills to beat lower opposition.

Yet, in a world where so much can be predicted sport isn't supposed to be that way. On a weekend where one continent obsessed about PSI levels and hockey players skating fast around drink bottles, the global game went back to the future to give fans a true glimpse of what following sport should be all about.

The oldest association football competition in the world may have become a little bit easier to read in its older, more recent years but it is not easy to teach an old dog new tricks and just when some wanted to write this one off it bounced back in all its glory on Saturday by showing modern day football fans just how beautiful it is when its most stunning feature, a giantkilling, is on show.

FA Cup fans of different generations all have memories of these games. The 70s had Colchester over Leeds and Hereford over Newcastle, the 80s had Sutton over Coventry and Bournemouth over Man Utd and then in the early 90s came Wrexham over the mighty Arsenal. Depending on your age the highlights and goalscorers from those games are never forgotten.

Major shocks also came in finals like Sunderland over Leeds, Wimbledon over Liverpool and, more recently, Wigan over Manchester City.

The board game, if you are wondering, ensured teams used away dice for neutral venues.

The return of the FA Cup, this season, to the broadcaster BBC in the UK has seen the competition receive more coverage and to promote the tournament they ran a number of previews in December, before the top teams joined at the third round stage, looking at the biggest shocks in FA Cup history. Like most of the ones listed here, rarely came ones where the giant was slayed on its own patch of grass.

Who knew that a month later that list would need to be changed? In the buildup to this past weekend's matches there was little fuss made about potential shocks. It is the job of the broadcaster to pick potential upsets in television slots, yet it speaks to the real level of surprise of the big shocks this past weekend that most took place at the traditional 3pm local kick off slot. Gone were Tottenham, Southampton, Manchester City and, of course, in disgraceful fashion, according to he who is special, Chelsea.

At a time when it really needed it the FA Cup delivered one of its biggest shocks of all.  Red dice………..two. White dice……………four.

Everywhere football fans turn these days there are articles and analysis about how to make the old pensioner that is the FA Cup relevant again.

Gone is the magic, they tell us, gone is the interest. Crowds are down but when assessing the reasons for that, the FA Cup itself is low on such a list. Like so many things in life, something so vulnerable isn't always at fault for its ways. The FA Cup will never be loved the way it once was but this past weekend gave us powerful images that sport, the great distractor from everyday life, can so often deliver.

Friday night's affair between Cambridge United and Manchester United ended 0-0 and the outpouring emotion from the home fans and players at the end was almost as incredible as the look in the eyes of the young Cambridge mascots who got to look up at the likes of Angel Di Maria and Radamel Falcao and shake their hands before kick off.

Less than 24 hours later, Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho was attempting to shake hands with Bradford boss Phil Parkinson to congratulate him on a stunning victory before the final whistle had blown. It was Bradford's moment. Well, almost.

"At that point there were still three and a half minutes left and I wasn't getting drawn into that," said Parkinson on the snub afterwards. Good for him.

Parkinson would get his moment. Mourinho had his interview and got his name splashed across the story once again. How exhausting. Magnificent he may be at his job, but it is little wonder his time in one place is so limited.

Unlike Chelsea, the FA Cup proved to be bigger than Mourinho. It came through English football like a hurricane this past weekend bringing many smiles to fans across the world who had become so complacent to the class system the game, flush with money, had allowed. This is not a tournament that will simply allow the country's big four to reach the semi-finals.

It will return in February down to its last 16 with seven of the top 12 in the Premier League, including the top three, no longer involved.

Gone are the teams who wanted it but would never prioritize it. Some teams remain who feel the same but in an era when its never been more difficult to break the monopoly of the top teams and win a trophy suddenly a real chance has opened up for big football clubs to end long runs without a trophy.

Back when board games were popular it meant everything to win the FA Cup. These days men in powerful positions at football clubs, with a strong disconnect for positive emotions, have done what they can to convince people that a finish in the top four of the Premier League is more valuable. Don't let them fool you.  There are some things you can't put a price on. Winning an FA Cup means so much to fans and players too.

"Best feeling I've had on a football pitch," said Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey after winning the FA Cup at Wembley last May.

There are still many games to be played but thanks to an unprecedented weekend of surprises we now have teams left whose eyes need to be firmly fixed on the prize come the Wembley final on May 30th.  If the dice fall in the right place the FA Cup could fall into the arms of a team desperate to have it for the third successive season. For the all the joy it continues to bring people, that is the very least it deserves.