WE’VE had the Matthews Final, the White Horse Final, even the White Suit Final.
At Wembley tomorrow, it’s the Consolation Cup Final between two clubs who are the closest to Manchester City on the balance sheet but light years behind on the team-sheet.
Chelsea v Manchester United was not the final the neutrals wanted, nor the fixture needed to breathe life into a faded competition.
From the semi-final line-up, Chelsea-Spurs would have been feisty and hugely watchable, while an underdog finalist would have given many of us an obvious team to root for.
But with these two, well, does anyone really care all that much? It probably won’t even make much difference to the lives of Chelsea and United supporters.
Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho haven’t even had the good grace to continue their highly entertaining, if juvenile, feud into the Cup final build-up.
Before their league meeting in February the two men shook hands in peace talks genuinely set up by a one-time senior British government diplomat who now works at Chelsea.
The final may give events in Windsor a run for their money in terms of pomp and ceremony: a brass band playing Abide With Me, flowers in buttonholes and the legions of Armed Forces personnel the FA now insist upon to make any major Wembley fixture look likes it’s being played under a military junta.
A-BRIDE WITH ME Who is singing the traditional FA Cup pre-match song
But the actual football is unlikely to live up to all that grandeur.
United will be favourites and, yes, winning the FA Cup and finishing as runners-up in the Premier League would not represent a bad season for Mourinho.
LATEST FA CUP FINAL NEWS
Yet nobody at Old Trafford really seems to be enjoying it very much. And few believe they can challenge Pep Guardiola’s City next term.
It was certainly a smart piece of business to smuggle Nemanja Matic away from Chelsea last summer.
The Serb was a favourite at Stamford Bridge – ‘Matic in the middle of our pitch’ sung to the tune of Our House by Madness.
You’d bet on the big midfielder being man of the match tomorrow. It feels like his kind of game, because Matic is a solid citizen rather than a setter of racing pulses.
Meanwhile Anthony Martial, a player with electric potential, appears to be heading for the exit, having fallen out of favour and been omitted from France’s World Cup squad as a result.
Will Martial’s departure be looked back upon as another serious error of judgment by Mourinho – who didn’t rate either Mo Salah or Kevin De Bruyne during his second spell at Chelsea? Martial has enough talent to suggest so.
Still, at least the former Special One hasn’t been as miserable as Conte this season.
The Italian’s downfall seems to have been coming right since last season’s final – when Chelsea failed to turn up and squandered the chance of a Double in a shock defeat by Arsenal.
It was already apparent that Diego Costa was leaving, and when Conte told his menacing striker as much by text message early last summer, the bond between manager and club became seriously frayed.
Conte has moaned about Chelsea’s transfer policy ever since – although the club are adamant that all recruits, such as Tiemoue Bakayoko, Danny Drinkwater, Alvaro Morata, Antonio Rudiger and Ross Barkley, were the manager’s own choices.
Yet the spirit of togetherness Conte had fostered during last season’s title triumph is long gone at this most erratic of football clubs.
“If you can meet with triumph and disaster and face those twin impostors just the same … you’ll be a man, my son,” wrote Kipling. By that measure, Roman Abramovich is one proper geezer.
Perhaps Conte will be able to pick up the famous old pot as a leaving present. Not that anyone would even pretend that winning the Cup final might persuade Chelsea to keep him.
But unless Eden Hazard shimmers on a major stage – as he so rarely seems to do – United should win this.
Mourinho will celebrate royally against a former club whose supporters now tend to loathe him.
But he will be kidding no one. Sadly, this Cup final promises to be little more than an afterthought.
IT’S RUMOURED that Mikel Arteta was by no means universally popular in the Arsenal dressing-room during his playing days.
And that is one significant plus point in the Spaniard’s favour as he heads towards his appointment as Arsene Wenger’s successor.
After years of cosiness and cotton-woolery under Wenger, Arsenal’s squad need less of the nicey-niceyness.
WATCHING Antoine Griezmann in the Europa League final, just like watching the brilliant Atletico Madrid forward most of the time, you were struck by the blindingly obvious question: “Why on Earth didn’t Manchester United sign this fella when they had the chance to?”
I ENJOYED the social-media video of kids from around the nation shouting out the names of England’s players when the World Cup squad was announced.
But the intriguing thing was that a girls’ team in Derbyshire must have known Gary Cahill was in the squad before Cahill did; likewise a group of hoodie-wearers in Lewisham would have heard about the biggest moment in Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s life before the player himself.
At least it goes to prove the FA are becoming less paranoid about leaks.
WHEN Sam Allardyce was sacked by Newcastle, the club were mid-table in the Premier League, a position they have rarely bettered in a decade since.
At West Ham, Big Sam’s team were famously booed off after a top-flight victory over Hull.
And despite raising Everton five places up the table during six months in charge at Goodison Park, Allardyce’s name was frequently taken in vain by supporters during matches the Toffees were winning.
The old mantra about football management being a “results business” has never been entirely true.
First and foremost, it’s part of the entertainment industry, a fundamental which Allardyce has never grasped.
IF FOOTBALL’S arch politician Rafa Benitez really does end up working for West Ham’s board of obsessive media briefers, then the whole thing is going to end up making the Brexit negotiations look like the definition of simplicity.
MICHAEL BUFFER – boxing’s extraordinary “let’s get ready to rumble!” botox man – is suddenly popping up all over British sport. His next stop is the Scottish Cup final.
Mate, we’ve loved you, but you’ve only got one line. You’re in danger of spreading yourself a bit thin here. People could quickly become very bored.
APPARENTLY they might do away with the toss in Test cricket in an attempt to redress the overwhelming nature of home advantage.
A decent idea. Especially as the Aussies have banned all their tossers anyway.
AFTER breaking into the top 20 of the world rankings, Kyle Edmund looks ready to take over from Andy Murray as the carrier of British dreams during Wimbledon fortnight.
So what to re-name Henman Hill or Murray Mount at the All England Club? How about ‘Knoll, Edmund’s’?
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