The best team in England just got beaten by a town of 26,000 people
Plus: the rest of a wild Carabao Cup week, Liverpool vs Arsenal on Sunday, and a beer with the goalkeeper who just had the best day of his life
Happy Friday, folks.
On Tuesday night, a team from a seaside town of 26,000 people knocked the Premier League champions out of a cup. No rich owner, no superstar, no nonsense. Just a goalkeeper who’d been let go from two previous clubs and a 19-year-old from Belfast with ice in his veins. On tap today:
🐟 How fourth-tier Fleetwood Town knocked out Arsenal
⚽ The Premier League preview for a weekend you don’t want to miss
🍻 A beer with Jay Lynch, the journeyman keeper who became a hero
Let’s tap in.
🥃 TOP SHELF
Fleetwood Town after they heard there was happy hour at the club bar.
The night a seaside town knocked out the champions
Fleetwood is a fishing town on the north-west coast of England. The club’s fans call themselves the Cod Army.
On Tuesday, Fleetwood Town drew 1-1 with Arsenal, the reigning Premier League champions, then won the penalty shootout 5-3 to reach the Carabao Cup quarterfinals.
“Right, Joe. How big a deal is that?”
Big. Fleetwood play in League Two, the fourth division, and went into the game 18th out of 24.
English soccer is a pyramid. The Premier League sits at the top, then the Championship, League One and League Two (learn more about the pyramid here). Stack those four divisions on top of each other and Fleetwood were 84 places below Arsenal.
Think of the minor league team from your town taking on a big league club. And winning.
How it happened
The night was strange from the start. In the second minute, the referee stopped play because a drone was hovering over the pitch.
Then Aaron Loupalo-Bi put Fleetwood 1-0 up in the 21st minute, and they held the lead to halftime. Viktor Gyökeres equalized for Arsenal five minutes after the break, and everyone assumed normal service would resume. It didn’t.
With five minutes left, Arsenal’s 16-year-old wonderkid Max Dowman was sent off for kicking out at Harrison Neal, who’d just flattened him with a tackle. Arsenal still conjured up one final chance in the 90th minute, but Fleetwood keeper Jay Lynch kept it out. That brought the game to penalties.
“Crazy stuff. Were Arsenal actually using their first-choice players or did Mikel play a load of baby-faced teenagers from the youth team?”
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta chose to rest stars like Declan Rice and Gabriel ahead of Sunday’s game at Liverpool, but he still picked a team full of seasoned internationals including captain Martin Odegaard and Viktor Gyokeres. More than enough to beat a team in League Two he would have thought…
The shootout
Fleetwood scored their first four penalties. When Arsenal’s fourth taker Bruno Guimarães had his kick saved by Lynch, up stepped Conor Haughey, a 19-year-old defender from Belfast who absolutely buried it.
Afterwards, Fleetwood manager Matt Lawlor admitted they hadn’t even practiced penalties. Fans flooded the pitch. The match-winner dropped an F-bomb on live TV - the swear in question was dropped in the thickest of Belfast accents at least, so good luck to any American trying to actually hear it…
And most importantly, the club genuinely announced happy hour in the stadium bar, where fans, players and staff carried on long into the night. Now that’s a club that understands its people.
What’s next
Fleetwood had never even reached this stage of the competition before. Now they’re in the quarterfinals, at home again, against Premier League Everton in the week of December 14.
Lawlor is less than a year into his first senior managerial job. Asked if this was the story of the season, he said soccer had become a bit “clinical and sanitised,” and nights like this were the antidote. Amen to that Matt.
⏰ TLDR: Fleetwood Town, 18th in the fourth division, beat Premier League champions Arsenal on penalties on Tuesday. A drone, a red card for a 16-year-old and a goalkeeper’s late save set it up, and a 19-year-old from Belfast scored the winner. Their stadium is called Highbury, which is also the name of Arsenal’s old ground. Everton are next.
PS: Fleetwood’s most famous old boy is Jamie Vardy, who made his name there before firing Leicester City to the most unlikely Premier League title ever in 2016. Something in the water up there.
🗣️ SOUND LIKE A REGULAR
“giant-killing”
/ˈdʒaɪənt ˌkɪlɪŋ/ 🔊
noun · soccer
Definition: When a small club knocks a much bigger one out of a cup. The small club are the “giant-killers.”
Origin: From the old English fairy tale Jack the Giant Killer. English cup competitions are open knockout draws, so tiny clubs regularly get the chance to play the giants. Every so often, Jack wins.
USED IN A SENTENCE
“Fleetwood are the giant-killers of the season. Arsenal fans want to talk about anything else.”
🗞️ THE WEEKLY TAP-IN…
Wesley Fofana after missing a crucial penalty vs Liverpool.
Premier League preview
Matchweek 9/38. Arsenal and Man City are level on points at the top on 21 points apiece. Full table here. All times ET.
Chelsea v Man United (Sat, 8:30am): United lost 3-0 at home to Bournemouth on Sunday, have won once in eight and are 16th in the table. Chelsea lost to Spurs last weekend and went out of the cup on Wednesday. Somebody’s week is about to get worse.
Liverpool v Arsenal (Sun, 11:30am): The game of the weekend. Arsenal need to forget Tuesday fast, and Anfield is the worst place in England to try. Heads up: US clocks go back on Sunday morning, so set that alarm right.
Newcastle v Everton (Mon, 3pm): A rematch from midweek. Everton knocked Newcastle out of the cup on Thursday. Newcastle are planning revenge on home soil.
The rest: Sat, 11am: Man City v Brighton, Bournemouth v Leeds, Brentford v Nottingham Forest, Coventry v Sunderland, Hull v Ipswich. Tottenham v Crystal Palace (Sat, 1:30pm ET). Aston Villa v Fulham (Sat, 4pm ET).
Carabao Cup recap
Gotten this far and still wondering what the heck the The Carabao Cup is? I’ve got you covered.
Looking back on midweek and Fleetwood weren’t the only drama. Three of the eight games went to penalties.
Liverpool 1-1 Chelsea (6-5 on penalties) (Wed): Both goals came from the penalty spot in the first half, Morgan Rogers for Chelsea and Cody Gakpo for Liverpool. Then the shootout went to sudden death, and Chelsea’s Wesley Fofana missed the decisive kick.
Man City 2-2 Brighton (4-3 on penalties) (Wed): The holders survived. These two meet again in the Premier League tomorrow, three days later.
Everton 3-1 Newcastle (Thu): James Garner, Hayden Hackney and Thierno Barry scored, and Everton earned a quarterfinal trip to… Fleetwood. Good luck.
Bournemouth 3-0 Aston Villa (Wed): A hattrick of 3-0’s from the Cherries (Bournemouth), who beat AC Milan 3-0 the week before and won 3-0 at Old Trafford on Sunday.
The rest: Sunderland 3-2 Brentford (from the team bottom of the Premier League), Fulham 0-1 Crystal Palace, and Bradford City 2-0 Peterborough, which puts Bradford in the last eight for the first time since 2013.
Full quarterfinal draw (week of December 14):
Fleetwood v Everton
Man City v Bradford City
Liverpool v Bournemouth
Crystal Palace v Sunderland
🍻 HAVE A BEER WITH…
The save that knocked out Premier League champions and Champions League finalists Arsenal.
Jay Lynch
Name: Jay Lynch
Club and country: Fleetwood Town and England
This week: Saved Ben White’s 90th-minute chance to take the game to penalties, then saved Bruno Guimarães’ kick in the shootout to knock out Arsenal.
Fact: Lynch is the definition of a journeyman. Born in Salford, near Manchester, he was released by Bolton in 2014, lasted barely a month at Accrington Stanley, then dropped into non-league soccer with Salford City and AFC Fylde. In 2019 he was named the best goalkeeper in the National League, England’s fifth tier, and worked his way back up via Rochdale before joining Fleetwood in 2022. He’s now 33. After the game, he said Fleetwood took inspiration from Grimsby, another fourth-tier side, beating Manchester United in this competition last season.
Toast: Whatever was on happy hour at the Highbury Stadium bar on Tuesday night. Something tells me he didn’t pay for it.
Instagram: Jaylynchy
🔥 HOUSE SPECIALS
⚽ Goal of the week: How about all of them? Here’s every single goal from the Carabao Cup this week.
🎉 Fanzone: Watch this heartwarming recap of the most famous night in Fleetwood Towns history.
📅 On this day: October 30, 1960. Diego Maradona is born in Buenos Aires.
🐶 Underdog of the week:Fleetwood Town. Who else was it ever going to be?
👕 Wardrobe watch: Fleetwood made a limited-edition shirt for the Arsenal game, with the fixture and date stitched on the chest. $80 for a piece of history? Yes please.
🔗 Most clicked from Monday: Man Utd’s fans showing their players how they really feel.
That’s all, folks. Sláinte.