It should have come with whipped cream and cherry on top

I know most people round here are a bit more excited about the college bowls, but I personally don't think there's anything better in sports than the English FA cup. For instance, this morning, Telford, a conference side, dropped Crewe Alexandria, a division one team, out with a convincing 2-0 win. To put that in a bit of perspective, its sort of like the Chattanooga Lookouts knocked the Atlanta Braves out of a nationwide competition which is intended to crown the best team in the nation, March-Madness style, but featuring every professional team in the country and, through qualifiers, every amateur side, too. For me, it was a decent day in the FA cup, as one of the teams I follow, Cardiff City, was knocked out 1-0, while the other, Everton, won 3-1.

America has its own version of the FA Cup, the U.S. Open Cup, which has been around since 1914, when the Brooklyn Celtics lost to Brooklyn F.C. Lately, its been all MLS teams, though, as only Rochester (an A-League team, the division right below MLS) has won the Open Cup since MLS started back in 96 or whenever it was.

Back in the 10's, 20's, and 30's, soccer in America was all about the poor kids, not the whining kiddies and soccer mommies who dominate it now... oh well, I think I'm over it now. Some rich history there, though... the Bethlehem Steel, Fall Rivers S.C. in the earlier years, the Cosmos (featuring Pele) in the seventies, the U.S. team, composed entirely of semi-professionals and college players that beat England, then the world's greatest team, 1-0 in the 1950 World Cup (a story that's being made into a movie now), Paul Caliguri's (I think) shot that landed the U.S. back in the World Cup in 1990 for the first time since 1950... mmmmm. The history is just as great (personally, I find it greater, but I'm aware that that's just my perverse bias, particularly against baseball) as any other sport in America. I love it.

Or how about Billy Gonsalves, the greatest American soccer player of all time, winner of eight U.S. Open Cups (including six in a row), who many said was, at the time, the greatest player in the world (including the manager of Glasgow Celtic, Scotland's biggest club, one of the top ten in the world).