Today In The FA Cup...

mjdeadspin|published: Sat 7th January, 14:50 2006

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What's The FA Cup, you ask? Well, here's what I can gather, combining knowledge from my buddy Danks and a very thoughtful e-mail from a guy named Pete. The FA is the governing body of soccer in England, which covers the Premier League and all the leagues below it, which are kinda like minor leagues, but not exactly.

Anyway, in the Premiership, they don't have playoffs, just a regular season. But along with that season, there are a few tournaments that have really nothing to do with the season, and The FA Cup, which is comprised of everyone from the powers like Chelsea down to teams who's best players also work in construction, is one of them.

Today begins Round 3, when the big teams come in play the little teams, which gives soccer fans what is kind of like a full day of #1 seeds against #16 seeds. As an example, Liverpool, the European Champions, played Luton today, which is kind of like The Boston Red Sox playing against the Inland Empire 66ers of the California League. Luton actually led 3-1 before Liverpool stormed back to win 5-3 to chants of, according to Pete, "3-1 and you fucked it up."

Elsewhere, Nuneaton (which is not an activity that I condone) managed a tie with Middlesbrough, Millwall tied Everton, and Rangers got a 5-0 win over Peterhead (giggle).