The Athletic FC

Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayur Akimwalere.

Last season, Crystal Palace were the kings of the cup beating Manchester City at Wembley.

On Saturday, though, they suffered a huge giant killing, losing to Maca's field.

So, how did it happen? And is Palace's season

at risk of being derailed? Joining us now, we have our Crystal Palace writer, Matt Wuznum, who was

actually at Moss Rose. We've also got Dom Fyfield. And later on, we'll be hearing from McEltsfield owner, Rob Smythurst. We were just in floods of tears. And, you know, we were watching grown men cry, you know, on the side of the football pitch in tears who've supported this club from, you know, well before I got it. Before that, let's get into the game. Incredible drama in the FA Cup.

The magic of the Cup is still alive.

But this cup upset could have been the biggest of them all.

Let's get some stats in for you.

There were 170 league places between Macclesfield and Crystal Palace.

This is the first time in the competition's 155 year history.

A top flight side has been knocked out by a team from the sixth tier.

And also, the last time a non-league side knocked out the holders was in 1909.

That team were Crystal Palace and they beat Wolves as well.

Matt, have you had time to calm down?

Can you with a level ahead to talk about that match now? I haven't processed it properly, to be honest with you, but I think it was, it was just a great, a great sort of game, I suppose. Obviously, from a palace point of view, it's, it's infuriating, it's frustrating, it's annoying, but I think there was certainly some palisans on Saturday who were

kind of happy for McElwold. And I think part of that obviously comes from Palace having won the FA

Cup in May. Otherwise, maybe those heads would be less level today. It's hard to really process exactly

what happened, to be honest. I'm just going to drop a few names here, Dom.

I was hosting Afcom with J-Joccoch and John O'Bimichel, and we were watching the Palace match as we were prepping for the quarterfinals of Afcon. And both of them just looked at me and went, oh my goodness, Palace. I cannot believe this. But both also said, you know what, this is the magic of a cup like this. You don't get this kind of magic anywhere else we've played in the world.

It's quite different, you know what, this is the magic of a cup like this. You don't get this kind of magic anywhere else we've played in the world. It's quite different to obviously what happened in May,

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