FA Cup: lower-league sides knock out top-flight clubs in 1 in 5 ties

In the FA Cup, a lower-league side has knocked out a top-flight club, one from the Premier League, in about 1 in 5 of the ties between the two, the knockout meetings where the loser goes out. The two sides meet because the cup puts several levels of English football in one tournament.

Which cup has the most giant-killings, meaning ties in which the lower side knocks out the top-flight side? None stands out. The DFB-Pokal in Germany, the Coupe de France and the Coppa Italia give close rates, and the gap between the four cups may be just chance. From 2005 to 2026, the FA Cup had 538 ties between a top-flight club and a lower-league one. The lower-league side went through in 105, including Macclesfield's win over the cup's defending champions, Crystal Palace.

Below is the count for each cup: how often 2nd-division clubs and clubs from lower divisions knocked out top-flight clubs. Next comes how often the lower-league side played at home, in its own stadium, something usually seen as an advantage. The ties come from the Soccer Addicted archive, the database of matches the site keeps, and Brazil's Copa do Brasil and Spain's Copa del Rey are left out because they are not in that database.

How the count was made: 2,204 ties in four cups

A tie counts once, even if it has two legs or an extra match after a draw, the replay. From 2024/25, the FA Cup no longer has replays in the rounds the count uses. A club knocks out its opponent by going through: the one that appears in the next round of the same cup is the one that counts, extra time and penalties included.

Each club enters the count with the division of that cup's season. The 1st divisions are the Premier League, the Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Serie A, and the 2nd divisions are the EFL Championship, the 2. Bundesliga, Ligue 2 and Serie B. The archive has no 3rd division or lower ones, so "3rd or lower" groups the 3rd, the 4th and the rest, without separating them.

The archive does not have the 1st half of 2024. So the 2023/24 season is out of the FA Cup and the Coupe de France and, in the DFB-Pokal and the Coppa Italia, everything after December 2023 is out. The 2026/27 season, under way, is also out. The calculation date is 9 October 2026.

There are smaller gaps too. The 3rd round of the 2011/12 FA Cup is missing, and so is the first round with 1st-division clubs in the 2007/08 Coupe de France. Of that same round, 2017/18 has only 9 of the 32 matches. And 11 ties of the 2005/06 FA Cup have no score and were left out of the count. That is why those seasons show fewer ties in the table.

Of the 2,204 ties, 2,126 allow the score to be compared with the next round, and in 2,125 the two point to the same club. The exception is Wolfsburg v Preußen Münster, in the 1st round of the 2021/22 DFB-Pokal. Wolfsburg won 3-1 in extra time. But the sports court of the German federation awarded the win to Münster, 2-0, because Wolfsburg's coach made one substitution too many. The archive follows the next round, where Münster appears.

Which cup knocks out the most top-flight sides? None stands out

No cup stands out: the Coupe de France has the highest rate, 24.0%, and the FA Cup the lowest, 19.5%. Rate is the percentage of ties in which the lower-league side went through. Next to it, the table shows the uncertainty range (95%): the interval where the rate probably lies, given the number of ties in that cup.

What this tells us: the four ranges overlap, and all share the stretch from 20.6% to 23.1%. Inference: the cups are more alike than their reputations say.

A statistical test gives the same message. If the four cups had the same rate, gaps like these would appear by chance in about 24 of every 100 tries (p = 0.24). Even the most distant pair, the FA Cup and the Coupe de France, does not show a clear difference (p = 0.079).

With the four cups added together, the lower side's division matters more

With the four cups added together, the 2nd-division side knocked out the top-flight side in 276 of 1,109 ties (24.9%), about 1 in 4, and the 3rd-or-lower side did it in 191 of 1,095 (17.4%), a little over 1 in 6. The uncertainty ranges do not touch: 22.4% to 27.5% against 15.3% to 19.8%. In my reading, it is the division of the lower side that separates the numbers most; cup by cup the picture changes, and in England the division separates almost nothing.

What this tells us: in Germany, France and Italy, the 2nd-division side knocks out more than the 3rd-or-lower side; in England, the two go through practically equally, 19.6% and 19.5%. Inference: the FA Cup is the exception to the division rule; in Italy the 3rd-or-lower group has only 94 ties, so the gap there is uncertain.

One example from this 3rd-or-lower group is Macclesfield, who on 10 January 2026 beat Crystal Palace 2-1 in the 3rd round, the first one in which Premier League clubs play in the cup. Crystal Palace were the holders, and Macclesfield, according to CBS Sports, a non-league side. It was one of the 43 eliminations of a Premier League club by a 3rd-or-lower side in the data.

There is a lead in the Coupe de France: the 2nd-division side knocked out the Ligue 1 side in 67 of 192 ties (34.9%), more than 1 in 3. It is a lead the archive does not yet prove, because the slice of data was chosen after the numbers were seen, and that kind of slice can inflate the result.

Who plays at home: only in the FA Cup does home not mix with the division

Only in the FA Cup can home and away be compared without mixing in the division: the lower-league side hosted the 1st match in 278 of 530 ties (52%), not counting semi-finals and the final. Playing at home is usually seen as an advantage, but the rate was the same on both sides: 19.8% at home (55 of 278) and 19.8% away (50 of 252).

What this tells us: the lower-league side played at home in 52% of the ties in England and 16.3% in Italy; against 3rd-or-lower sides, it played at home in 100% of the ties in Germany and 91.5% in France. Inference: only in England does the lower side play at home close to half the time, and that is why only there can home and away be compared without mixing in the division.

In the other three cups, who plays at home goes together with the division of the lower side, and the count cannot separate one from the other. The archive says who hosted the match, not why. In Germany, the 3rd-or-lower side played at home in all 413 one-match ties and went through in 15.3%, the lowest rate of that group in the four cups. The difference between the cups, in that group, may be just chance (p = 0.51).

Has it become rarer over time? The ranges of the two eras overlap

If you have heard that giant-killing is getting rarer, the count does not confirm it. Repeated over two eras, from 2005/06 to 2014/15 and from 2015/16 to 2025/26, it gives lower rates in the second in England, Germany and France. In Italy, the rates are almost equal (21.2% and 22.0%). But the uncertainty ranges of the two eras overlap in every cup, as the table shows.

What this tells us: France went from 27.1% to 20.7% and Germany from 22.1% to 17.9%, but the ranges of the two eras meet in all four cups. Inference: the archive does not allow saying that giant-killing became rarer, or more common.

Season by season, the sample is small: each cup has from 10 to 38 ties per year. Each cell shows how many times the lower-league side went through and how many ties there were: 3 of 21 means it went through in 3 of the 21 ties.

What this tells us: from one season to the next, England went from 3 of 24 (2006/07) to 10 of 25 (2007/08), and Italy had only 1 of 17 in 2010/11. Inference: with so few ties per year, only the sum of many seasons shows the pattern.

The three numbers that stay

Keep three numbers. In the four cups, the lower-league side went through in about 1 of every 5 ties (21.2%). It went through in about 1 of every 4 when it was from the 2nd division (24.9%) and in a little over 1 of every 6 when it was from the 3rd division or lower (17.4%). These are records from 2005/06 to 2025/26, and not a forecast of any match.

In my reading, the strongest finding is the lack of difference between the cups, and not the rate of any one of them. The image that stays is that of 10 January 2026: Macclesfield knocking out the holders, one of the 467 eliminations the count records.