Portsmouth v Cardiff City:THIS FA Cup final is so distinctive that it would fail a drugs test if romance were an illegal substance. The game is doped up with novelty. An English manager will get his mitts on the trophy and the winner will come not just from beyond the top four but perhaps from outside the Premier League. There are engrossing case histories on the field, whether, in the Portsmouth ranks, it is David James's reclassification from calamity to national treasure or, at Cardiff, the possibility of Robbie Fowler stealing into another final at some point.
The only difficulty lies with the match itself. There is no reason for it to become festive just because Chelsea have the afternoon off this year.
The holders got the silverware in 2007 when grim deadlock with Manchester United was broken at long last in the 116th minute. That goal, all the same, was a substantial reward for a neutral's patience since it was taken with such cool delicacy by Didier Drogba.
This season the absence of Champions League clubs will register most in the lack of strikers reminiscent of the Ivorian. At 33, Fowler's membership of the elite has lapsed.
Portsmouth have a rich owner but it is only United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool who can afford outstanding forwards or keep them for long.
Even then the numbers are small. United do not have a traditional type of centre-forward on the books, unless you count the frequently unavailable Louis Saha. Arsenal, for their part, would be at a loss if Emmanuel Adebayor were missing for a while. Given that dearth, it is no shock that Portsmouth should feel their own limitations in that department.
Over the League campaign that has just been completed, they scored 48 goals, whereas the champions, United, racked up 80.
Elsewhere Portsmouth are better equipped to withstand comparisons. With the help of James, Sol Campbell, Sylvain Distin and others, they had the pedigree in defence to keep a clean sheet at Old Trafford and win the quarter-final with a penalty from Sulley Muntari.
Of the five matches that have led to Wembley, four of the victories have been by a 1-0 margin. Nor did they cut loose in the other game, a 2-1 defeat of Plymouth.
Cardiff have been more incisive, although they were coaxed into the scoring mood with a third-round draw that sent them to Chasetown of the British Gas League Division One Midlands.
David Jones's side got over the almost statutory indignity on these occasions of falling behind, to a Kevin McNaughton own-goal, before emerging with a 3-1 victory.
Most managers are in a quandary when it comes to locating attackers in whom they can have faith. Reconditioned players have an appeal for those on a tight budget. In the semi-final the 36-year-old Jimmy Floyd-Hasselbaink was the spearhead in Cardiff's 1-0 defeat of Barnsley. At Portsmouth Harry Redknapp is not quite driven to such extremes but Nwankwo Kanu has a venerable air for one whose date of birth is given as August 1st, 1976.
They did strive to do something about this dilemma by spending £6 million on Preston's David Nugent but he lost his way in the journey from the Championship to the Premier League. Though a further £7.5 million was laid out for Jermain Defoe in January he is ineligible for the final this afternoon having appeared for Tottenham in the FA Cup this season.
So it is that Milan Baros is quoted as joint favourite with Kanu, at 6 to 1, to notch the first goal, even though he has not scored in any of his 15 matches for Portsmouth since the loan move from Lyon in January and will most likely be on the bench.
There will still be much to relish, particularly in young footballers who are less familiar to most watchers, such as Cardiff's Joe Ledley, whose wonderful hooked volley undid Barnsley, or his coveted team-mate, the teenager Aaron Ramsey.
The match should be absorbing but it is patronising to suppose that it will be a merry caper.
This final must mean more to Portsmouth and Cardiff than it ever could to blasé Chelsea and United. They will have neither the inclination nor the means to throw themselves into a wild adventure.
