In this basket-case of a season, at this basket-case of a club, a basket-case of a storyline. It seemed to challenge idea that Portsmouth Football Club, after the self-inflicted woes of the past year and more, could suffer a day like this, but in sport, in this competition, logic, as so often, was incited on the head.
To declare the happy scenes at the finish of this FA Cup semi-final, that was settled in additional time by goals from Frdric Piquionne and Kevin-Prince Boateng, you would not have had an opinion of the problems that go on to threaten Portsmouths existence. This was a bar a squad, a vastly diminished staff and tens of thousands of dedicated supporters enjoying a form of catharsis, a cleansing of the sour emotions that have taken hold during a duration in that greed, self-interest and insufficiency have taken it to the margin of ruin.
For once, the speak was not of administrators, winding-up orders, redundancies, creditors intentional agreements and murky vigilant on draining a bar dry. It was about football, about sport, and the capability to move happiness where there had formerly been despair. It was, in short, about intrigue and the kind of improbable escapism on that the FA Cups story has been founded.
On the change of play, Tottenham Hotspur can equate themselves intensely unfortunate to have been denied a initial FA Cup Final coming given 1991, but fate, destiny, call it what you like, seemed to foster Portsmouth. In the space of 4 mins in the initial half of additional time, Piquionne scored after Michael Dawson, the Tottenham captain, had slipped on the awful playing aspect and Peter Crouch, the former Portsmouth forward, saw a legitimate idea disallowed for a self-existent tainted by Niko Kranjcar on David James. Were it not for the actuality that Chelsea await in the Final on May 15, it would be tantalizing to review to clich and indicate Portsmouths name is on the Cup.
Related LinksCrouch focusing on here and right away for TottenhamGrant, the honour of Pompey, helps lift gloomAvram Grant, the Portsmouth manager, was asked thereafter if he felt that predestine was on Portsmouths side. If someone the upper story wants this, I think hes crazy, he pronounced with a smile, adding that it would take a funny executive to introduce such a screenplay and he was not, it seemed, articulate about Peter Storrie.
As a club, as a corporate entity, Portsmouth merit zero but ridicule and ignominy for the mismanagement of new years underneath a period of uncaring owners. But a bar is some-more than a corporate entity. It is about a community and the players and others at the back of the scenes who paint that community. Above all, perhaps, it is about the supporters, who continue some-more pain and agonise than Alexandre Gaydamak, Sulaiman al-Fahim and Ali al-Faraj could ever proceed to comprehend.
Portsmouths supporters merit an additional day out at Wembley, but so, too, without question, do the players. After the mass departure given the clubs FA Cup triumph of 2008, Portsmouth have been left with a multi-coloured organisation of hired hands and rejects from alternative clubs, not slightest Tottenham, but what they miss in class, they have up for in character.
It is tantalizing to contend that Portsmouth won yesterday since they showed greater desire. That would be oppressive on a Tottenham group who, receiving each opportunity to attack, regularly found Ricardo Rocha, Aaron Mokoena and David James restraint their way, but infrequently it seems that way. Even if Harry Redknapps players were unblemished in their attitude, there was a spirit between their opponents that referred to that Portsmouth, in annoy of an obvious cove in class, simply would not yield.
Redknapp, the losing manager, will consternation how Portsmouth, his former club, prevailed. Tottenham enjoyed by far the larger share of possession, most of it low in antithesis territory, but notwithstanding the solid tide of crosses from Gareth Bale on the left-hand side and David Bentley on the right, each attack was repelled. James done glorious saves from Crouch and Tom Huddlestone in the initial half and from Crouch again in second-half blocking time. Between times, there were drastic blocks by Rocha on Jermain Defoe, Mokoena on Crouch and Hayden Mullins on Bentley. The word stubborn does not do them justice.
Portsmouth showed small by approach of aggressive ambition, with Piquionne removed for prolonged durations by a five-man midfield whose initial pursuit was to contain. But the Frenchman played the sole striker purpose intelligently, holding the round up well and watchful for Boateng, Hassan Yebda and Aruna Dindane to arrive in support.
Tactically, as Grant remarkable afterwards, it was an glorious performance, even if it indispensable an contentment of suggestion for that purify piece to sojourn intact.
One such renew roughly brought Portsmouth a idea eight mins prior to half-time as Yebda played Piquionne in to a good position, usually for the forward to fire at the legs of Heurelho Gomes. On an additional occasion, early in the second half, Piquionne was picked out with a keen cranky from Dindane, but he was incompetent to beget the energy to flog Gomes.
The finish of 90 mins came and went before, suddenly, Piquionne struck in the ninth notation of additional time. Marc Wilson floated a free flog in to the chastisement area, Boateng sent a harmless-looking header towards the six-yard box and Dawson, calamitously, slipped on a representation that Redknapp called a disgrace. Piquionne could hardly hold his luck, but he stoical himself to fire past Gomes.
Tottenham attempted to serve the response, but when Crouchs celebrations were cut short by Alan Wiley, who saw a self-existent tainted by Kranjcar on a relieved James, they contingency have feared that this was not their day. So it proved towards the finish of additional time, when Dindane ran transparent and was generously deemed to have been fouled by Wilson Palacios in the chastisement area. If it was a foul, it should have been a red label for Palacios, but, in the event, the penalty, quietly converted by Boateng, an additional Tottenham reject, served as low mark enough.
With that, the celebrations proposed in aspiring at the Portsmouth finish and, if their players and fans can grin after a deteriorate similar to this, may be there is still something special about the FA Cup after all.
Tottenham Hotspur (4-4-2): H Gomes 6 V Corluka 6 M Dawson6 S Bassong 6 G Bale8 D Bentley6 W Palacios 6 T Huddlestone 7 L Modric6 J Defoe5 P Crouch 6. Substitutes: R Pavlyuchenko 5 (for Defoe, 59), N Kranjcar (for Bentley, 79); E Gudjohnsen (for Huddlestone, 106). Not used: B Alnwick, B Assou-Ekotto, J Livermore, D Rose.
Portsmouth (4-5-1): D James 8 S Finnan 6 A Mokoena8 R Rocha8 H Mullins6 A Dindane 6 H Yebda 6 M Wilson 7 M Brown7 K-P Boateng 6 F Piquionne 7. Substitutes: J Utaka (for Yebda, 88); P Bouba Diop (for Piquionne, 113); R Hughes (for Mullins, 119). Not used: J Ashdown, A Basinas, T Smith, Kanu.
Referee: A Wiley. Attendance: 84,602.
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