Although games are not arranged on a regional basis, this year’s competition, which began with a record 731 teams, has spat out four semifinalists from four distinct parts of the UK. Portsmouth is a naval town on the south coast of England. West Bromwich Albion are from the Midlands, while Barnsley is located in the industrial north. Cardiff is the capital of Wales and its team, Cardiff City, is one of only three Welsh clubs that compete in the English league.

In a sport that generally defies the American love for statistics, this year’s FA Cup semifinals are rife with them. Three of the four teams ply their trade in the Championship, England’s second division, with Portsmouth being the only representative from the Premier League, the first tier of English soccer. The last time this stage of the competition featured only one team from the top flight was exactly one hundred years ago. For the first time in almost half a century, the semi-finals do not involve a team from London, Liverpool or Manchester, the traditional soccer powerhouses. (The top four teams in the English Premier League standings at the moment are Manchester United, Liverpool and – from London – Chelsea and Arsenal.) In fact, it’s necessary to go back to 1973 for an FA Cup Final that didn’t feature a club from one of these cities, when Sunderland beat Leeds United in a famously dramatic encounter.

Portsmouth will be the clear favorites to lift the FA Cup. In addition to being the sole Premier League team left in the competition, they boast a squad that includes a talented group of international players, including the national team’s first choice goalkeeper, David James. Portsmouth have also appeared in three finals, winning the most recent of those – a relative term, since the victory dates from 1939.

Their semifinal opponents, West Bromwich Albion, are pushing hard for promotion to the Premier League. West Brom, as they are known, were one of the founding members of the world’s first soccer league in 1888. They boast a superior FA Cup pedigree to Portsmouth, having won the trophy on five occasions, including once in the modern era, a mere forty years ago. By contrast, the first two of their five victories occurred in the nineteenth century.

Cardiff City have won the trophy just once, in 1927. If they mange to repeat that lone success, they will have engineered an interesting predicament. A considerable side benefit of winning the FA Cup is that the victorious team is admitted to the following season’s UEFA Cup – a knock-out competition for clubs throughout Europe that has been won by the likes of Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Bayern Munich. Participation in this tournament – especially if they progress through one or two rounds – would generate much-need revenue for Cardiff City, but there is a problem. As the rules stand, a Welsh team can only qualify through a Welsh – not English – competition. The issue is under review by the English Football Association, but no doubt soccer’s mandarins hope that the semi-final result will render it a non-issue.

So will the fans of Cardiff’s opponents, Barnsley, along with many neutrals. The romantic money will undoubtedly be on this deeply unfashionable club from a town whose fortunes were tied to coalmines, all of which are now closed. It’s a shame that those bets were not placed in January, when the odds on the team winning the Cup were listed at 500-1.

Barnsley have spent most of their history in the second tier of English soccer. They enjoyed a single season in the top division a decade ago and currently have the lowest league placing of the four teams. Yet they too have won the FA Cup once, their sole triumph being somewhat overshadowed as a news item by the sinking of the Titanic ten days earlier.

Barnsley are, however, this year’s giant killers, knocking out Liverpool in the last sixteen and eliminating 2007 Cup winners Chelsea in the quarter-finals. A club that struggles to get 10,000 fans for their home matches are one game away from an FA Cup Final appearance in front of ten times that number. Their path to the semifinal suggests that there is nothing – and no-one – left for them to fear.