Macca's Off To Wembley

In Time For This Weekend's FA Cup Final, The Irish Examiner Interviews Cardiff City's Stephen McPhail

By Tony Quinn

It stands a mere 19 inches tall but the Football Association Challenge Cup better known as the FA Cup is the trophy every professional footballer wants to raise above his head in front adoring fans at a packed Wembley stadium in London at some stage in his career.

This coveted piece of silverware is the trophy awarded to the winners of the oldest football competition in the world having been played for since 1871.

These Cup Finals have produced great games, heroes and villains and some of the finest players in football history have graced Wembley's sacred turf and Irish players have played a significant role in finals over the years.

The competition this season began way back on August 18th 2007 when the first of 731 clubs accepted into the tournament for the 2007-2008 campaign faced each other in a knock-out format. Nine months later, this coming Saturday, the final will be contested by Cardiff City and Portsmouth.

Portsmouth play in the English Premier League, the richest domestic league in the world, alongside Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal while Cardiff City (also known as The Bluebirds) play in the Championship, a division lower facing sides like Hull and Blackpool.

Cardiff last won the trophy in 1927 while Portsmouth collected the rarified prize in 1939 a lifetime ago for fans of both clubs.

An added incentive to being presented with the cup, the winning team also qualifies for the first round of next season's UEFA Cup and a chance to face some of the greatest teams in Europe.

The Cardiff City squad for the final will include Irish international midfielder Stephen McPhail and he may yet be the man who leads the 11 man team onto the field as club captain Darren Purse and deputy captain Ricardo Scimeca are both a doubt for the final through injury.

Early Years

Born Stephen John Paul McPhail in London, McPhail moved back to Dublin as a baby just a few weeks old, his family settling in Rush, a picturesque coastal village just north of Ireland's capital city.

His first football club was the local team of Rush, joining the Under 8s, before moving to Home Farm Football Club in Dublin City when he was 10 years old. Talent scouts from major English teams continually source up-and-coming players in Ireland and so it was that Stephen's ability caught the eye and he signed for Leeds United, one of the world's most storied clubs on his fifteenth birthday.

During his time in the Leeds youth set up he attracted the attention of other English teams who wanted his signature on a contract and the then manager of the team George Graham reportedly described him as, 'The new Liam Brady', a reference to one of Ireland's and the English league's greatest ever players.

When Graham was replaced as manager by former Irish international David O'Leary in 1998 it began a spell when the club would reach the semi-finals of the two major European competitions playing teams of the caliber of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Roma along the way.

In the 1999-2000 season Leeds reached the Semi-Final of the Uefa Cup and were drawn against Turkish champions Galatasary but lost out 4-2 on aggregate to the eventual winners of the tournament.

The following season Leeds made it to the semi-final of the world's biggest club competition, the European Champions League, but again came up short going down to Spanish club Valencia.

But McPhail has a more emotional reason for remembering the game against the Turks in Istanbul. "Of all the European games we played the Galatasary game sticks out in my mind because two Leeds fans were killed the night before the game." (Two Leeds fans were stabbed during a fight between groups of opposing supporters.)

During the 2001-02 campaign Stephen had a brief loan spell with Millwall, he then returned to Leeds but was again sent out on loan to Nottingham Forest during the 2003-2004 season.

Back at Leeds things were not well - David O'Leary had been sacked in the summer of 2002 and the club had amassed a crippling debt in their bid for domestic and European honors.

McPhail transferred to nearby Barnsley in 2005 and helped them get promoted, winning the League One play-off final and promotion to the Championship after a 4-3 penalty shoot-out triumph against Swansea at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff.

Beginning his playing days as a left-sided midfielder as his career progressed McPhail now plays in a more central midfield role. After that play-off final Barnsley offered McPhail a contract but he turned it down seeking a change both of location and football club.

Cardiff came calling and McPhail transferred to the South Wales club. "I wanted to move away from Leeds, Barnsley is quite close to Leeds and I just wanted a change as I had lived there for eleven years. I wanted a change and a new challenge." He explained.

Then last summer McPhail signed a four-year contract at Cardiff which ties him to the club until the end of the 2010/11 season. "I'm settled in south Wales and I love playing for Cardiff City," he said at the time. "The gaffer [Dave Jones] spoke to me just before the end of last season and said he wanted me to sign a longer contract. That came as a surprise and I talked it over with my wife, Michelle. We both enjoy living here and quickly decided we want to stay."

In a footballing world that today sees most players move quite frequently throughout their career McPhail understands that the signing of a contract guarantees nothing. "I don't think it means too much in football. Nowadays people leave at the drop of a hat." He told me.

But he is very, very happy in South Wales telling me. "I'd love to stay, I've had a great time, it's been the most consistent part of my career, I feel really, really settled here. But if it means I have to move on then I have to move on it's up to the management and the chairman that one."

Man enough to admit when he is not at his best, earlier this season McPhail blamed a poor run of form by Cardiff on his own performances. "This is my fault," said McPhail at the time. "I will not shy away from that. I'm not playing to the standard I know I can and that's not good enough for me or the team. I have felt the pressure - it's totally down to me."

While they may have hit a sticky patch in their Championship campaign the FA Cup proved their route for glory and City saw off all-comers including English Premiership opposition in the shape of Middlesbrough beating them 2-0 way on the way to the final.

The Bluebirds

The Cardiff City cup final squad has a sprinkling of some well-known veterans in the shape of Robbie Fowler, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Trevor Sinclair along with a group of talented youngsters who McPhail acknowledges have made their mark in the past season. "The younger lads have played quite a lot this season and some of our young lads are going to be really good, we have quite a few of them who are home grown from Cardiff."

In saying this he also understands that a club of Cardiff's size will, for the most part, be a feeder club for the English Premier League. "We have two really good young Welsh boys that are attracting a lot of attention and I am sure they will not be hanging around too long with the big clubs sniffing around."

The vast majority of professional footballers will never play in a FA Cup Final and McPhail underlines the importance of the experience of the likes of Fowler, Hasselbaink and Sinclair and the other senior squad members this week.

"Obviously in the next week they are going to be vital in how to prepare for a big game, probably the biggest game in many of the lads' career so far, especially the young boys, trying to settle them down and just getting them through it.

"We have quite a lot of things to do, press work and stuff off the pitch which sometimes takes away from the main objective which is performing on the pitch. I am sure some of the older boys will hand down some experience to the younger ones.

"It rattles up a few nerves, from this week forward on it's getting close to kick-off time and there is so much going on it's a big buzz. You can't really get your head around it without someone mentioning it to you, so with that I think the experienced boys will be vital just to make sure we concentrate on our training and making sure we are ready performance wise on the pitch." He said.

Cardiff will make their way to the team hotel outside London on Friday afternoon and travel to Wembley on Saturday arriving at the stadium an hour and a half before kick-off the same way they would for any game. "We haven't done anything different, we have done the exact same thing, our travel arrangements are the same, meals are the same, we are not going to treat it as anything different. We prepared like that for the semi-final and it worked and we are going to do the same again there is no point in changing it."

Ireland And Celtic

Stephen has earned 10 Irish caps first playing during the 1999-2000 season against Scotland, South Africa and the United States and he scored in a 2-1 win against South Africa at Giants' Stadium. "My debut was at home to Scotland at Lansdowne Road. Every Irish lad dreams of playing at Lansdowne Road. It is just a great place to play football. Growing up that's all you dream about."

But while it is four years since McPhail last played for Ireland in a senior international his Cardiff performances have him back in the fold.

After Wembley, McPhail will go to Dublin to meet up with a 40-man Ireland squad for a training camp in Portugal. McPhail hopes to be playing in Ireland's friendly games against Serbia on May 24th and Colombia on May 29th.

These will be the first two games with the new Ireland manager, Italian Giovanni Trapattoni and his assistants Liam Brady and Marco Tardelli.

"I am hoping to be involved back in Croke Park. Straight after the final it looks like I will have to go back there. That's just for a week and after that we have three or four weeks off and then the new [Championship] campaign starts up again."

Groups of players from the Irish international setup are close socially outside the game. Recent images showed Ireland's Robbie Keane who plays with Tottenham and Damien Duff who plays with Newcastle cheering on Celtic against Rangers in the Glasgow derby and McPhail wasn't too far away. "I was there as well, I went with the two boys and we had a good weekend. We are good friends, we have played together since we were quite young and we all get on quite well. It is good to meet up and any time we can meet up during the season we try to do that."

McPhail may even get to play against the Hoops of Celtic this summer in Portugal as City will be lining up against the Scottish giants during a prestigious pre-season tournament in the Algarve. Cardiff and Celtic have accepted their invitations, while beaten FA Cup opponents Middlesbrough are set to confirm their invitation this week the competition which will also feature Porto.

So on Saturday when Stephen McPhail leads the Cardiff City team across the white line of the Wembley pitch to take part in this year's FA Cup Final the best wishes of Irish fans around the world will go with him and the beauty of the FA Cup is that it is famous not only for the glamour and razzmatazz but also its history of the underdog winning out against the bookies favorite.

Come on you Bluebirds!