The match of my life

I doubt I am the only Pompey fan of my generation - first game September 1970 - wondering whether Saturday May 17, 2008 could well be "it".

Having followed the team for 38 years, a penalty shootout defeat in the semis against Liverpool in 1992 has been the closest I have got to knowing what it is like to win "real" silverware.

Winning the "First Division" in 2003 was nice, even though it was offset by the teensy-weensy problem that it was, in fact, the Second Division in old money, while avenging that penalty shootout defeat to beat Liverpool in the 2007 Barclays Premier League Asia Cup in Hong Kong was sweet, especially as a stadium has probably never been emptier for a trophy presentation, but it was really no more than a pre-season friendly.

But Saturday is the real deal.

Abide With Me, a worldwide TV audience of millions... Pompey stand on the threshold of domestic glory for the first time in a generation. Not to mention international recognition and exposure like never before.

So you will forgive me if I'm feeling more tense than usual. My 45 years have taught me to deal with winning and losing as being merely two sides of the same coin. Most of the time.

Saturday, though, is different. Lose this one and ... well, I will be grateful if I get as many as 38 more seasons watching Pompey.

Which brings us to the key question. Will Pompey win?

Neutrals have been telling me for weeks it's a foregone conclusion and one mate who regularly takes the bookies on and gains an honourable draw now and again, reassures me by saying he wouldn't contemplate backing a Cardiff victory.

Throughout this Cup run - and for most of the season, save the final six games or so - I have had a calm, at times serene, confidence that this team of Harry's will come up trumps when it matters. I don't do away games much these days, but I made sure I went to Old Trafford for the sixth round. You see, I just knew. When they put their collective minds to it, Pompey are capable of doing special things.

Cardiff are a more than capable side on their day. Indeed, if I were Harry I'd spend an hour on Cup final morning showing the team Cardiff's first-half quarter-final performance against Middlesbrough. If we take them lightly and they get their game together, they can win.

But there is not one City player I would swap for a Pompey one - especially if we line up as I expect: 4-5-1 - James; Johnson, Distin, Campbell, Hreidarsson; Utaka, Diop, Diarra, Muntari, Kranjcar; Kanu.

More crucially, that team has elements with almost as much to lose as fans like me who have spent half a lifetime dreaming of this moment when "my" Pompey team exorcise the ghosts of Dickinson, Scoular, Harris & co. It's the reason I have followed Pompey through thick and (mainly) thin all that time. One day we'd be back.

For Hreidarsson, Distin and Diop, this is as much "it" as it is for me. A career, if not life-defining moment. For Johnson, Utaka, Diarra, Muntari and Kranjcar, while more may yet be to come in their relatively infant careers, the sooner they start collecting medals, the more likely others will follow. And even been-there, done-that merchants such as James, Campbell and Kanu will know that to win the Cup with Pompey, good old provincial-and-proud-of-it Portsmouth, will rank among their greatest professional achievements.

The final is Pompey's to lose and the only way they will do that it is by mentally rehearsing walking up the steps before the game is won, rather than concentrating on the task in hand. But my head agrees with my heart: this Pompey team will not lose this final in the mind, they will win it on the field. Play up Pompey.