167/1

167-to-1.

That, apparently, was the odds you could have got by betting on Saturday's FA Cup double upset - Portsmouth defeating Manchester United at Old Trafford, followed by Barnsley beating Chelsea at Oakwell.

If Portsmouth's victory owed something to good fortune - a nailed-on penalty for the home side denied early on, two clearances off the line, a world-class save (with the assistance of a post) by David James and Man U finishing with Rio Ferdinand in goal - there was nothing undeserved about Barnsley's upset win. This was no snatch-and-grab raid: adventurous from the start, Barnsley made the FA Cup holders distinctly uncomfortable throughout the game, and the only real surprise was that it took them 66 minutes before Kayode Odejayi's header finally broke the deadlock. (Not bad for a striker who had failed to score in his previous 28 games.) It was a thoroughly deserved win, and there can be no argument that the side which sits in 19th place in the Football League Championship, a precarious four points above the relegation places, has not earned its trip to Wembley for a semi-final against Cardiff City in four weeks' time, having beaten both Liverpool (at Anfield) and the Cup holders in successive rounds.

Meanwhile, Harry Redknapp will be taking a team into the final four for the first time in his long managerial career. And yet Saturday's win at Old Trafford should not have come entirely as a surprise, despite Pompey's recent slide in form, for Harry has a habit of beating Man U in the Cup, having previously guided both Bournemouth and West Ham to Cup victories over United.

So, for the first time in exactly one hundred years, there is only one top division team in the semi-finals. And for the first time since 1995, a team outside the so-called 'Big Four' (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Man U) will have their name inscribed as winners on the FA Cup.

Who says the FA Cup can no longer provide us with the big shocks and a dash of magic? Fantastic.

One small footnote. At the end of a week where FIFA president Sepp Blatter called, rightly, for referees to take a harder line on dangerous tackles and suggested lifetime bans for players who intentionally commit such fouls, we saw two more high profile examples of the kind of challenge which needs to be eradicated from the beautiful game. David Bardsley's assault - I can think of no more accurate way to describe it - on Everton's Steven Pienaar appeared far worse than Martin Taylor's leg-breaker on Eduardo. And Wayne Rooney's full-blooded, two-footed lunge on Niko Kranjcar, although it thankfully missed Kranjcar, was every bit as bad.

It shouldn't matter whether a dangerous tackle makes contact with an opponent, or even whether it results in an injury. The crime is all about the illegality of the challenge itself, not its outcome, and should be punished as such. As it was, both Bardsley and Rooney escaped with a booking. Similarly, Pienaar and Kranjcar escaped without serious injury. All four can consider theselves fortunate.

This sort of tackle has to be punished with a suitably serious sanction - at the very least the powers that be should have the ability to retrospectively apply the current three-match ban with the aid of video evidence in those cases where the perpetrator has escaped a red card on the pitch. Or else a day will come when one of football's sparkling talents - a Cristiano Ronaldo, or a Cesc Fabregas, or a Fernando Torres, or a Lionel Messi, or a Kaka - will be lost to the game prematurely.