Portal:English football/Selected competition/7

The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football, run by and named after The Football Association. The name "FA Cup" refers to the English men's tournament. The equivalent competition for women's teams is the FA Women's Cup.

The FA Cup is the oldest football competition in the world, commencing in the 1871-72 season. Because it involves clubs of all standards playing against each other there is the possibility for "minnows" from the lower divisions to become "giant-killers" by eliminating top clubs from the tournament, although lower division teams rarely reach the final. A record 762 teams were accepted into the FA Cup in 2011-12, which is to date, the most amount of entrants. In comparison, the League Cup can involve only the 72 members of The Football League (which organises the competition) and the 20 teams in the Premiership for a total of 92 eligible teams. The team who have won the most FA Cups throughout the competition's history is Arsenal, having won it on 14 occasions and The Gunners also appeared in the final the most, reaching the showpiece event 21 times. Manchester United are second on the list on Cup wins on 12 and, like Arsenal, appeared in 21 finals, but they hold the most defeats there with 9. Everton and Chelsea have both lost one less, but the latter became the first team to lose three successive final appearances (2020, 2021, and 2022).