Chelsea travel to Wrexham in arguably the most intriguing tie of the FA Cup fifth round on Saturday – and they won’t be thanking one of their club legends if they come unstuck.
Joe Cole teamed up with Karen Carney to do the fifth-round draw in mid-February, sending his old club to the Racecourse Ground for a potentially tricky tie.
Under the owner of Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, Wrexham’s ascent through the leagues has been rapid, and they’re currently pushing for a fourth consecutive promotion, sitting within the Championship play-off places.
Coles unite
Joe Cole did the fifth-round draw via his role as a pundit for TNT Sports, and he also now records the podcast Could It Be Magic? with his former Chelsea and England team-mate Ashley Cole.
FourFourTwo spoke to both after a recent podcast episode – Ashley has won the FA Cup a record seven times, three with Arsenal and four with Chelsea, so has huge affection for the competition.
“Just representing Arsenal once would have been my dream – after retiring and looking back on the career I had, winning the FA Cup seven times is something I never dreamed of,” he told us.
“As a player, it’s something you don’t really think about at the time, because you just want to win it again, but now you reflect, as the old man I am… and I’m like ‘Yeah, holding the record is actually a great achievement’.”
Asked if they each have particular memories of FA Cup matches when they were the victims of a cup upset, one had a more instant memory than the other.
“I’m not being big-headed there, but I don’t think there were too many,” Ashley said. “Maybe against Everton I might have missed a penalty and put it over the bar.”
Joe Cole remembered a game at Oakwell in 2008. “The Barnsley game, losing to them, in the quarter finals I think it was,” he said. “It’s a very lonely place when you lose a game you should win.”
"Destiny was in my hands"
Joe Cole enjoyed doing the fifth-round draw, which took place at Macclesfield’s Moss Rose before their tie with Brentford, and revealed that he’d had some stick for sending Chelsea to Wrexham – albeit inadvertently, in what is a random procedure.
“You’d be amazed, the amount of people who are blaming me!” he laughed. “The fans behind me at the draw, they were booing me! I was like ‘Mate, I’m not doing this on purpose!’
“You do feel like there’s a little bit of holding destiny in your hands – there’s nothing you can do about it, but you’re picking out the balls. I’m sure Wrexham fans will be buzzing, Chelsea fans maybe not so much.”
Ashley expects it to be a tough match for his old club – one that Wrexham are capable of winning.
“Yeah, for sure – that’s why we love the beauty of the FA Cup and what it brings, and why we see so many top teams falter against so-called lower teams,” he said.
“The competition gives people the ability to have a day of dreaming and Wrexham’s form at the moment is half decent, really challenging for the top six in the Championship and the Premier League.
“Chelsea are Chelsea – they’re win, lose, draw, they’re still finding that balance of being really consistent in winning game after game, back to back. Wrexham’s going to be a tough place to go.”
There will be more from Joe and Ashley Cole in FourFourTwo soon.
The Could It Be Magic? podcast with Joe Cole and Ashley Cole is brought to you by Carling, the official sponsor of the Emirates FA Cup and Adobe Women’s FA Cup. You can watch the show on YouTube and Spotify or listen to it wherever you get your podcasts.
