Southampton do the Championship proud but the power of the big club rules
“The Spirit of ’76” drove Southampton, from the Championship, against Manchester City, who were in their eighth consecutive FA Cup semi-final. One club clung to the only major honour in their history while the other pursued a domestic treble under a manager who has won
18 trophies in England.
Framed that way, you could have counted the thousands of empty seats in the City end and called this another sad example of the powerful beating up the powerless. But it was more uplifting than that, even if TV cameras caught two City fans fast asleep as the second half started. For three precious minutes Southampton were going to the final before first Jérémy Doku and then Nico González restored the natural order.
Through Southampton’s impressive confidence and energy on the pitch – and the fervour of their supporters – it was possible to forget that no team outside the top tier have won the FA Cup since West Ham in 1980.
The last finalists from outside the top echelon were Cardiff City, who lost 1-0 to Portsmouth in 2008, after the semi-finals had featured only one top-flight team for the first time since 1908. But in the end of course the Premier League prevailed.
Since Southampton’s FA Cup win 50 years ago this summer, the only winners from the romance/underdog category have been Ipswich Town (1978), West Ham (1980), Coventry City (1987), Wimbledon (1988), Portsmouth (2008), Wigan Athletic (2013), Leicester City (2021) and Crystal Palace last year.
Palace’s win was a vital transfusion for the world’s original knockout competition and showed what winning it can mean to people who have dreamed all their lives of such a day.Eight “upsets” in half a century of finals suggests an irreversible domination by the mega clubs. Two in the last five years – Leicester and Palace – sounds more hopeful.
The biggest gap, though, is between Premier League and Championship clubs, tiers one and two: a rupture Southampton were hoping to repair here, while keeping their logical brain focused on rejoining the plutocracy City and Arsenal are fighting to control. Forty-six years ago West Ham lifted the FA Cup with a side who had no business being in Division Two. It contained Phil Parkes, Frank Lampard Snr, Billy Bonds, Alan Devonshire and Trevor Brooking, and it was too good for Arsenal on the day.
Southampton came from nowhere this season to start menacing their fellow Championship promotion candidates. They are a case study in Premier League-Championship yo-yoing. They spent 11 years at the top until 2023, went down, came back up and were relegated again in 2025 with seven games still to play.
Their form since Tonda Eckert took over from Will Still as manager has been red hot, and suggestive of yet another change of league. They were unbeaten in 20 games since January, have won 12 of their last 15 in the Championship and knocked Arsenal out in the FA Cup quarter-finals. Eckert says: “It’s quite clear that the Cup has also helped us to perform in the league. I think that it’s that way round.”
In other words, FA Cup football isn’t always just a distraction from promotion campaigns. But the winner of this semi-final earned £1.06m, the runners-up £530,000. Promotion to the Premier League is worth £200m.
Those disparities explain even Championship clubs fielding weakened teams in the early Cup rounds. Southampton did it too, but still found themselves carrying a flag last raised by West Ham in the year Nottingham Forest also retained the European Cup.
Six Southampton changes from the side who drew with Bristol City in midweek sounds almost contemptuous of FA Cup tradition. But two of those were the result of suspensions. And Tuesday night’s meeting with Ipswich could make or break the club’s hope of going up automatically.
Even though their next Premier League game was nine days away (at Everton), City made eight changes from the Burnley game. Guardiola was taking no chances with fatigue in their title race with Arsenal.
Gianluigi Donnarumma, Erling Haaland, Doku, Marc Guéhi, Bernardo Silva and Nico O’Reilly all started on the bench. City, remember, were pursuing the domestic treble. Guardiola spoke of “an incredible loss of energy” at this point in the season and used the term “mentally fatigued”.
Whatever’s wrong with Phil Foden is at once mysterious and painfully apparent. Promoted to the starting XI, he lasted less than an hour before giving way to Savinho. He played for those 57 minutes without confidence or direction. Southampton’s wide-left attacker Leo Scienza was contrastingly brilliant, as the underdogs defended stoically and counter-attacked well, until City drove them back into their penalty box while piling up 23 shots.
There were so many missed chances that Haaland, who has an unhappy record at Wembley, was sent on 20 minutes from the finish. From the Southampton end came a trepidatious groan. But they pulled one back on the sleeping-fan front when TV picked out a follower of Saints having a snooze. He looked old enough to have been here in 1976.
Then came the cliché so beloved of football commentaries: punishment for missed chances – an exemplary 20-yard finish from Southampton’s Finn Azaz, quickly cancelled out by Doku’s lucky deflected equaliser and González’s bullet winner.
To paraphrase Gary Lineker, the FA Cup is a simple business. Thousands of people run around for nine months and then the big club win it. But credit Southampton for keeping alive the hope of a more interesting outcome.