Avram Grant the honour of Pompey rises the dejection Portsmouth

Andrew Longmore & ,}

THE last time Avram Grant took a group to Wembley, Chelsea lost in the last of the Carling Cup and the sourness of the recriminations reflected a bar not used to losing, slightest of all to Tottenham.

Grant can recollect station subsequent to his father after the match, nursing his disappointment. As ever, Meir Granat was perplexing to think of something positive to contend to his son. You know, pronounced Meir finally, there are worse things in hold up than losing a Cup final.

Avram thought he knew what was entrance next. His father had survived the Holocaust and Stalins genocide camps, but had never talked plainly about his past, preferring regularly to dwell on the future. Grant braced himself for a singular impulse of revelation.

"Just think, pronounced Meir gently, you could have lost in the semi-final.

Related LinksGiven: reaching up Newcastle have hold up see Crouch focusing on here and right away for Tottenham

Every probable indicator suggests that Grant will know all about improved in a semi-final by the finish of Sunday afternoon. Portsmouth fans have been billing this diversion as Pompey v Pompey rejects, but as the rejects embody Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe and Nico Kranjcar as well as the manager, Harry Redknapp, and Pompeys already rag-tag patrol has been serve strike by injury, the loyal understand of the change of energy is rather different.

While Tottenham are eyeing Liverpools legacy in the Champions League, averting unconcern is Portsmouths solitary aim. Thankfully, in the FA Cup, form and category are not the total story.

On Sunday, I can guarantee usually dual things, Grant says defiantly. We will fight each in. of the approach and we will try to fool around football. I dont know how most players we will have but I guarantee you each one will come with their heart.

The tour that began with Grants lapse to Portsmouth last Oct has taken on a most broader symbolism for the 54-year-old Israeli. Meir Granat died that same October, at the age of 82, and the onslaught to catch the loss of his father and coach has turn fused with the nearby unfit plea that Grant has unwittingly taken on at Fratton Park.

If I have since the fans here something to grin about, theyve since me something to grin about too, he says. Theres not a day that goes by that I dont recollect my father. He was a really really special man, a survivor of the Holocaust who had to cover up his mom and father and sister with his own hands. Yet he was regularly optimistic, regularly certain about everything.

My mother and sister have pronounced that may be I am receiving a little of his suggestion in to this club, but Ive not beheld it. He taught me most things but saying so most and may be I can do the same here.

Instead, he has turn a cult figure at Fratton Park, Uncle Avram, the architect of an unusual frisk to the Cup semi-final and a some-more renouned figure than Harry Redknapp, who won the Cup for Portsmouth usually dual years ago, prior to the accountants came to equate the cost of the triumph.

Grant, though, will not stick on in any carol of defamation of Redknapp with whom he worked happily at Portsmouth. Tottenham are a great group with a great manager, he says. When Harry assimilated the bar they were bottom of the league, right away they are fighting for fourth place and I goal they get it because they have played some-more consistently great football than the others.

Grant will need assurances about the clubs finance management from any impending new owners, but he has not ruled out heading them in the Championship subsequent season. I am not a man who comes usually for one year, he says. I am a man of routine and if you see at my jot down my second year is regularly improved than my first.

"If all is OK at the club, of march I would stay. The administrator is you do a great pursuit and I goal the subsequent owners will come in and emanate a little fortitude since if you dont have stability, you cannot correct anything.

For me, I have been unapproachable to be concerned in this relegation. I have learnt a lot, not usually about motivating the players but about motivating myself when the usually thing left is honour Thats because the Cup has been most easier to us than the league. If we win in the Cup, we know we will reach the subsequent round.

One some-more doubtful victory, in the semi-final opposite Redknapps Tottenham at Wembley on Sunday, will finish a fairytale over even the Cups fruitful imagination.