The FA Cup can be an underdog story this season unless Man City spoils the party

Manchester City is the only thing standing in the way of a soccer fairy tale in the FA Cup.

Take away City — the behemoth of the English game over the past decade — and the clubs remaining in the famous old competition heading into this weekend's quarterfinals have not won a major trophy between them this century.

Heck, four of them have never won any major silverware.

What a chance, then, for Fulham, Crystal Palace, Brighton, Nottingham Forest, Preston, Aston Villa and Bournemouth to create some history and spark some more life into English soccer.

In the modern-day English game, trophies and titles are typically concentrated in the hands of a few clubs. Leicester (2016) is the only team outside a group of five — Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United — to have won the Premier League since Blackburn in 1995. Only three teams outside that star quintet have won the FA Cup this century — Portsmouth (2008), Wigan (2013) and Leicester (2021).

This season might prove an outlier.

Newcastle upset Liverpool in the English League Cup final at Wembley Stadium this month to capture its first major domestic trophy in 70 years.

“Almost every fan I looked up at in Wembley was crying," Newcastle striker Alexander Isak said about the club's biggest moment in a generation.

Imagine how fans of Fulham, Palace, Brighton and Bournemouth — clubs now firmly in the Premier League's middle class — would feel if they were to win the FA Cup for the first time and guarantee a place in the Europa League?

It could be on, too.

City might be the bookmakers' favorites but Pep Guardiola's team has been a shadow of its former self this season and is playing away to Bournemouth, where it has already lost in the league.

City has only won four of its last 10 games in all competitions — and two of those victories were against lower-league opposition in the FA Cup.

Here's a look at the lineup for the quarterfinals:

Both teams are established members of the Premier League and, sitting in mid-table, are safe from relegation this season. That means they are free to throw all their focus into the FA Cup.

Fulham, which ousted Man United in the last 16, has had two runs to cup finals — in the FA Cup in 1975 and the Europa League in 2010 — but lost them both.

Palace was a finalist in the FA Cup in 1990 and 2016, losing both times to Man United.

Both of these clubs have more than the FA Cup on their minds.

Forest, a back-to-back European champion in 1979 and ‘80, is in third place in a remarkable Premier League campaign and could be returning to Europe’s top competition again. No stranger to silverware, Forest has won the English top-flight title, two FA Cups and four League Cups — but none of them have come since 1990.

Brighton, meanwhile, is in seventh place in the league and — lying just one point behind fifth-place Man City — has a realistic shot of qualifying for the Champions League for the first time. What would fans prefer, though — Champions League qualification or winning the FA Cup for a first major trophy?

Brighton was the FA Cup runner-up in 1983 — also to Man United.

Two historic clubs in their own right find themselves in very different positions.

Villa — the European champion in 1982 and a seven-time winner of both the league and the FA Cup — is back in the big time under Spanish manager Unai Emery and has reached the Champions League quarterfinals this season. Still, the club hasn't won a trophy since the League Cup in 1996.

Preston was a founder member of the Football League in England, winning the first two league titles in 1889 and '90, and also won the FA Cup in 1938. The team was last in the top flight in 1961 and is the only non-Premier League club in the quarterfinals.

Those seeking some romance in the FA Cup will no doubt be behind Bournemouth, which has never been in a cup final and hasn't finished higher than ninth place in England's top flight.

Indeed, Bournemouth had never played in the top division before 2015 but is now regarded as a forward-thinking club with a highly rated manager, Andoni Iraola — all while playing in its cozy 11,300-capacity Vitality Stadium. It has already beaten City, Arsenal, Tottenham and Forest there this season.

City is looking at the FA Cup to save its disappointing season, after effectively relinquishing the Premier League following four straight titles and not even reaching the Champions League's last 16.

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Manchester City's head coach Pep Guardiola gives instructions from the side line during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Brighton and Hove Albion at Etihad stadium in Manchester, England, Saturday, March 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)

Manchester City's Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Brighton and Hove Albion at Etihad stadium in Manchester, England, Saturday, March 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)

FILE - Opening ceremony prior to the soccer Europa League final between Atletico Madrid and FC Fulham in the arena in Hamburg, Germany, on Wednesday, May 12, 2010. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, file)

FILE - Manchester City's Ilkay Gundogan, center, holds up the winners trophy as he celebrates with teammates winning the English FA Cup final soccer match between Manchester City and Manchester United at Wembley Stadium in London, Saturday, June 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson, file)

FILE - Nottingham Forest's John Robertson, left, Ian Bowyer, center, and Kenny Burns, right, carry the European Cup in triumph after their 1-0 win against Malmo FF in Munich, Germany, May 30, 1979. (AP Photo, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is heading toward the finish of a strong, potentially perfect week as U.S. stocks on Friday drift close to the all-time high they set just a few months earlier, though it may feel like an economic era ago.

The S&P 500 was up 0.1% in early trading and potentially on track for a fifth straight gain. It’s heading for a 4.6% rise for the week, which would be its third big winning week in the last four, as hopes build that President Donald Trump will lower his tariffs against other countries after reaching trade deals with them. Such hopes have driven the S&P 500 back within 3.6% of its record set in February, after the index at the heart of many 401(k) accounts briefly dropped roughly 20% below the mark last month.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 52 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.

Trump’s trade war had sent financial markets reeling worldwide because of twin dangers. On one hand, tariffs could slow the economy and drive it into a recession. On the other, it could push inflation higher. A couple better-than-expected reports on inflation this past week helped soothe some those second worries.

But all the Trump’s on-and-off rollout of tariffs could by itself damage the economy by creating so much uncertainty that it causes U.S. households and businesses to freeze their spending and long-term plans. A report coming later in the morning will offer the latest snapshot of sentiment among U.S. consumers, which has been souring sharply because of tariffs.

In the meantime, Treasury yields eased in the bond market following this week’s better-than-expected signals on inflation, which could give the Federal Reserve more leeway to cut interest rates later this year if high tariffs drag down the U.S. economy.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.39% from 4.45% late Thursday and from more than 4.50% the day before that. Lower bond yields can encourage investors to pay higher prices for stocks and other investments.

On Wall Street, Charter Communications rose 1.3% after it said it agreed to merge with Cox Communications in a deal that would combine two of the country’s largest cable companies. The resulting company will change its name to Cox Communications and keep Charter’s headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.

Novo Nordisk’s stock that trades in the United States fell 1.8% after the Danish company behind the Wegovy drug for weight loss said that Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen will step down as CEO and that the board is looking for his successor. The company cited “recent market challenges” and how the stock has been performing recently.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed amid mostly modest movements across Europe and Asia.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 inched down by less than 0.1% after the government reported that Japan’s economy contracted at a faster rate than expected in the first quarter of the year.

AP Writers Jiang Junzhe and Matt Ott contributed.

Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader talks on the phone near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Trader Edward Curran works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trader Jonathan Corpina works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trader William Lawrence works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Traders Jonathan Mueller, right, and Michael Capolino work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)