I felt lucky to be in the local park on Sunday. For all kinds of reasons. Fortunate to witness the drama of a FA cup giant. Fortunate to feel the passion of a crowd in a club that still values their own fans than tourists and hikers.
Fortunate of being in a club that is nursing pride in its own regional identity. Good luck of being sitting in the beautiful tribune of Mayflower with its echoes in history. Fortunate to see what result, like Plymouth Argyle's victory over Liverpool, for a local community.
Sometimes, it may seem as if the FA cup represents a missing world, a last vestige of tradition in a sport whose stations pretend that it began in 1992 and whose money creators see more lucrative opportunities in other places.
Arne Slot gave his first team on Sunday off. He didn't even include any of them in the squad that traveled to West Country. He chose a second FA Cup team because Liverpool has five games in the next 15 days and have larger priorities.
So, when I heard BBC Radio 5 Live On The Drive home from Plymouth, I tuned Robbie Savage and Chris Sutton's phone and heard Savage talk to a Plymouth fan. “Congratulations to overcome Liverpool reserves,” he said.
And he was right. Plymouth had defeated the powerful Liverpool, but it was not the best available Liverpool. And that is not the fault of the slot. Its priorities are the Premier League and the Champions League. His players have a crazy schedule and something has to give. And something, most of the time, is the FA Cup.
Home Park had the passion of a crowd in a club that still values its own fans more than tourists and buyers of one day
It was a day that illuminated the best of our game when Plymouth Argyle knocked out the Liverpool
Arne Slot chose a side of the second rope liverpool: his priorities are currently in another place
Some felt, in fact, that Liverpool's defeat in HOME Park could actually be a blessing disguised as Slot and his team. Liverpool has larger fish to fry and fight in one forehead will give tired players the opportunity to recover while pursuing the brightest awards.
It conforms to a context in which the traditions of the tournament are being eroded. UEFA has established a European Super League for stealth in the form of the Champions League in constant expansion and our elite clubs are committed to a calendar that tries to squeeze the life of everything else.
The F Cup remains a showcase for the best game has to offer and, nevertheless, the FA itself is betraying it by grades and the Premier League, which sees threats to its greed everywhere, is trying to kill it . When Crystal Palace president Steve Parish spoke about a battle between supermarkets and corner stores, it was the voice of the elite.
Both the FA and the Premier League will deny that, of course, but the facts tell a different story. The abolition of FA repetitions, its dissemination of matches in the fourth round for five days and its transfer of the FA Cup final to the penultimate weekend of the season are betrayals.
And yet, despite all this, despite the betrayals and weakness and commitments and cowardice of people who run the game, the FA Cup continues to challenge them because it continues to thrive.
That was the other thing that was so beautiful to be in the house park on Sunday. It was to realize that anyone who has returned out of contact with the English game, however ceremony they have become, English football fans love the Cup FA too much to let it wither.
Of course, Liverpool played a second team in Plymouth, so the giant murder was not the same as in the days in which Hereford beat Newcastle United and Wimbledon celebrated a team of Leeds United that had Peter Lorimer, Billy Bremner, Jonny Giles , Paul, Madeley and the rest of the first selection of Don Revie.
And perhaps some of the fans in the domestic park were disappointed not to see Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk exhausting the colors of Liverpool. But that disappointment was when the final beep exploded and when it was written in the registration books that his team had defeated Liverpool.
Arne Slot players have a crazy schedule and something has to give: he was right when changing side
The result was still played with our love for the helpless. It was still a purple eye for the giants. There was still something about the occasion that reached the nucleus of the attractiveness of the Cup: that the common players of the lower league clubs with stories and lives that seem almost yours and mine can fight with the golden elite and sometimes, sometimes, They can come outside at the top.
That is why the Premier League and UEFA will find it difficult to kill the FA Cup. Because the competition is in the heart of what we love about football and is in the heart of what gives English football its unique point of sale.
The elite believes that our unique point of sale is the Premier League, but it is not. What makes English football special is its pyramidal system. It is the depth of our game, the fact that eight clubs in our average fourth level crowds of more than 7,000 this season.
On the third level, two clubs average more than 20,000 for their local crowd. Five more average more than 10,000. That is in the League one. Premier League's disease is that they see that competition not as a football brotherhood.
The beauty of our league is in its combination of the powerful historical clubs such as Manchester United and Liverpool and Arsenal and local teams such as Plymouth and Stockport County and Carlisle United and Grimsby Town.
Most football fans in this country know it. I love their own team, but at some level, they also love what our game represents. The best resides in the FA Cup and the people who measure things only in money will not be able to kill him, no matter how much they try.
Plymouth fans may have been disappointed not to have seen Virgil van Dijk and Mo Salah, but that evaporated full time
The best of football lies in the FA Cup and the people who measure things only in money will not be able to kill it.
Impossible mission?
I do not think he has the will to try to keep up with the various missions and projects that leave Old Trafford now that the influence of Sir Dave Brailsford is growing in Manchester United.
Until now, the only tangible effect of Mission 1, which is based on the United Women -winning team for the first time, has been to take Alan Brazil to the edge of a live hernia in Talksport.
Mission 21, you will be surprised to know, revolve around the ambition of the male team winning another Premier League title. No one had thought about doing that before Sir Dave appeared. That is the thought of blue sky for you.
Uncontrolly, Brailsford has helped bring United to 13th place at the table, closer to the lower three than the first four. So, perhaps we are all misunderstanding what the statement of the mission is. Perhaps Mission 21 means that Sir Dave is committing to win the next title before the end of this century.
Rasmus Hojlund could even have scored another goal by then.
Sir Dave Brailsford wants Manchester United to win the Premier League, but they are closer to the descent zone than the Premier League
No one had thought about doing that before Sir Dave appeared, and Ruben Amorim has been clear how much work he needs to do
Sancho lifts eyebrows
When Marcus Rashford left Manchester United on loan to Aston Villa and made his debut on the weekend, Jadon Sancho posted a message of a word in the Faithm Instagram feed of Rashford. He simply said 'Libertad'.
Since Sancho, who is borrowed in Chelsea, is still a united player, it is not surprising that some followers in Old Trafford are less impressed by their attitude.
They have been paying the player's salary, outside from time to time, during the last three years, no matter how little in return.
Liberation works in both directions. I suspect that they will be glad to be closed from him when Chelsea makes his permanent movement in the summer.
Marcus Rashford published a series of photos on social networks after his debut in Aston Villa, to which Sancho commented: 'Freedom'
United and his fans will probably be happy when Sancho joins Chelsea permanently in summer
Nothing like sport
I was on Twickenham on Saturday for the impressive victory of England's last victory over France and the best player in the world, Antoine Dupont.
On Sunday morning, I drove to West Country to witness the Plymouth Argyle Fa giant of Liverpool and delight in the rich culture of English football.
On Tuesday, I will be in Manchester to see City to face Real Madrid by Vini Jr, Federico Valverde and Jude Bellingham. And on Wednesday, I can say what could be goodbye to one of the great cathedrals of our game, Goodison Park, when Everton meets Liverpool in the Derby of Merseyside.
Very, very occasionally, it is possible that I must remember how lucky that I am to work on something so captivating, rich and unpredictable and inspiring as the world of sport, but it does not happen often.