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FA Cup season, on The Short Fuse

The oldest soccer competition in the world is back!

Chris Brunskill/Getty Images

It's January, and you know what that means: the return of the FA Cup. Well, not really the return per se, since the competition actually starts with the "extra preliminary round" in August, but the part where teams like Arsenal come in starts now. On Saturday, we'll face off against Sunderland to start the year's campaign and hopefully press on towards a third-consecutive triumph.

Since Arsenal has won the last two FA Cups, I thought it might be fun to do some extra coverage as we get ready for the new "season." We'd be the first club to run a three-peat in the Cup since Blackburn Rovers in – no kidding – the 1884, 1885, and 1886 seasons. Yes, the last time a team won the FA Cup three years in a row was the year Arsenal was founded. So yeah, it would be pretty cool to do it this year.

Over the next week, we'll have some special FA Cup content for you. We'll take a look at the last couple of FA Cup wins, as well as some other things both surrounding the competition itself and Arsenal's history therein. And hopefully, the team won't make us look silly by going out and losing the first game. That would be...annoying.