Thanks to an almost inscrutable set of conditions to determine European qualification this year, and thanks to the widest and closest battle for those places we’ve ever seen, Crystal Palace’s FA Cup semi-final against Aston Villa is technically the most significant fixture in English football history.
Surely there has never been an instance when eight different clubs not taking part in the match were praying for a particular result.
Only half of the entire Premier League will be neutral on Saturday. The other half all want Villa to win.
Everyone above Villa wants Unai Emery’s side to progress in order to further jam up their schedule with games, while the next five teams below Villa all need the same outcome to ensure that eighth becomes a Europa League or Europa Conference League spot.
There are too many permutations to go through, but suffice to say that unless Chelsea win this season’s Conference League or not.
And if Palace do lose, then we can announce the beginning of a new mini-league: a second point of interest in a Premier League campaign that had threatened to die a slow death.
There’s an eight-point gap between seventh and eighth. The league has finally split, and that leaves Brentford, and Palace – separated by just four points with five games to go – battling it out for the final place in Europe.
It might not have the glamour of a title battle, or even of the Champions League race, but it is just as important.
Three of those five teams have never been in Europe before. Should Andoni Iraola complete his Bournemouth project, should Thomas Frank get the ultimate rewards for seven years of work, or should Oliver Glasner take Crystal Palace further than anyone has managed despite their long history in the top flight, it would be a truly historic day.
Brighton and Fulham have been there before, it’s true, and to return would be less monumental. But it could still have enormous ramifications for both clubs.
Fabian Hurzeler, under a bit of pressure, can turn a poor season into an excellent one while relieving some of the financial burden following Brighton’s £200 million outlay last summer.
Marco Silva, who has Champions League experience at Olympiacos, would be leading Fulham into Europe for the first time in 13 years.
But it goes deeper than that. Finishing eighth this year could be a gateway to the very top of the game.
We are entering into a new phase of English clubs in Europe. The expansion of the Champions League, the new ‘league phase’ formats that assist the wealthier clubs, and the introduction of a third tournament have made European football open to almost anyone in the Premier League.
England could have had 12 places in Europe next season. It could still be 11 and feels relatively likely to be nine, providing an opportunity for some wealth redistribution in the top flight but, more importantly, an opportunity for the Premier League’s once-forgotten mid-table clubs to fight for something tangible.
For the foreseeable future, any well-run Premier League side can squeeze into the Europa League, a competition that looks distinctly winnable now that no Champions League teams drop into it during the knockout stage.
This hasn’t caught the public imagination just yet, but a new pathway to Champions League football is opening up for the band of Premier League clubs getting obscenely wealthy but stuck in the middle of the division.
After decades of English football looking like a closed shop at the top, all of a sudden things have changed.
This year’s mini-league for eighth is hugely significant. And it’s the first of many to come.
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