FA Cup IS IT possible to turn a paler shade than white? I only ask because Avram Grant seemed to pull it off on Saturday night, sporting the kind of look pioneered by under-achieving Politburo ministers when they were informed that Comrade Stalin wanted a quiet word, preferably in private.

The Chelsea manager - who can now probably expect a similar summons from his own Russian autocrat - always looks as if he has just spent a few hours in an embalmers' studio but his appearance in the wake of Barnsley's utterly engrossing quarter-final triumph set new standards in ghastliness. It was as if all the blood had been drained form his body and pumped directly into the face of Alex Ferguson, who was doing his usual pickled beetroot impression in the wake of Manchester United's equally spectacular cup demise at the hands of Portsmouth.

Not that it was his fault, you understand, or even that of his jaw-droppingly arrogant players, who appeared to believe that Pompey would collapse with a single swing of their Louis Vuitton man-bags. That honour goes to the referee Martin Atkinson and his boss Keith Hackett, who Ferguson claimed "has a lot to answer for in this country". Even by the Scot's sky-high standards, this was stretching his obsessive, paralysing paranoia to new heights.

I make no apology for claiming that it is always an unmitigated pleasure to watch one of the Premier League elite fall flat on their faces. Schadenfreude is generally an ugly trait but I am happy to make an exception when it comes to the spoiled, petulant brats of the top flight's self-proclaimed big four and especially United and Chelsea, whose gracelessness in defeat never ceases to amaze.

Surely I wasn't the only one to see the hilarity in Cristiano Ronaldo's look of tearful incredulity at being refused a blatant first-half penalty at Old Trafford, or John Terry's Neanderthal stomp of rage at being beaten by a side whose combined wages would struggle to fund Frank Lampard's cashmere scarf habit for more than a week? Such moments need to be cherished, if only because they happen so rarely.

The toppling of United and Chelsea - and, for that matter, Liverpool in the previous round - has given the FA Cup a renewed sense of purpose. It is all very well for the tournament to deliver goals by the bucket-load or a string of plucky near misses from the Football League's flotsam and jetsam, but without genuine, gut-wrenching upsets, it is pointless. Only shocks can sustain it.

The Premier League is different. Richard Scudamore and friends might like to claim the division is one of the world's elite sporting competitions but, in reality, it is an anti-competition, the title out of reach to all but the Champions League clubs and their vast stores of wealth. And this, of course, is how the big clubs like it: it is much harder to flog over-priced replica shirts to awe-struck devotees in Thailand or arrange super-lucrative American summer tours if your side isn't winning every week. The division is fuelled by self-interest.

Until this season, the cup had been locked in a similarly numbing cycle of predictability, a trinket passed nonchalantly around the usual suspects ever since Everton bloodied Manchester United's nose in 1995. Now, at last, the pattern has been smashed and we can look forward to a Wembley final which will not be either a chronic mismatch or one of those interminable Big Four showdowns which make every neutral want to gouge out their own eyeballs.

The excitement is back. This season's competition is a throw-back to a more innocent age, when the honours were shared around and almost every supporter could dream that, one day, their club could have its day in the sun in north-west London. The only people who should be dismayed at seeing the motley crew of Portsmouth, Barnsley, Cardiff and West Brom in the last four next month are the poor saps in charge of hawking out Wembley's vast swathe of corporate seats.

If we must have a Premier League winner - and, given romance always has an expiry date, it seems inconceivable that we could have an all-Football League final - then I, for one, hope Pompey go all the way.

In the shiny, plastic world of Premier League football, they are an embarrassing stain: their ramshackle stadium would disgrace many League One teams, their players have a combined age approaching 1,000 and their manager has spent more time being questioned by fraud investigators than sports reporters this season. They are, in short, a real football club and would be worthy winners of a real football competition.It is always an unmitigated pleasure to watch one of the Premier League elite fall flat on their faces