A PLACE in the English League Cup final would save Leeds United's season and make Birmingham City's. For all that, the Premiership side would be ill advised to assume that the desire to reach Wembley burns less fiercely in their opponents in tomorrow's semi final first leg at St Andrew's.
After taking just 26 of the last 66 points available, Leeds urgently need to placate their frustrated followers. Two games against a middling First Division team appears the ideal opportunity for Howard Wilkinson to rediscover the plot, but they will find Birmingham bursting to atone for a century of mediocrity.
While neighbouring Aston Villa can point to a string of championships, FA Cups and success in Europe, the club bearing the name of England's Second City have won just one major trophy, the League Cup. Even that was in 1963, when the competition was an irrelevance with a two leg final and no UEFA Cup place for the winners.
Enter, after a further 30 years of under achievement, David Sullivan, Essex man and publisher of the determinedly downmarket tabloid Sport titles. With his managing director, Karren Brady, he pledged to create a brave new blue world. Sullivan's passions may have been for horses and birds (nudge, nudge), but he was (is) seriously wealthy and ready to back Barry Fry with his chequebook.
His investment, backed up by the Gold brothers of Anne Summers sex shops tame, has not been on the scale of Jack Walker at Blackburn or the Haywards at Wolves. However, a rotten and rusting eyesore is now a stadium for the 21st century. And Fry, the great wheeler dealer, has been able to indulge his compulsion with six figure sums.
The turnover in players has been staggering; nearly 70 have figured in the first team during Fry's 26 months as manager. This week he has recruited Vinny Samways and John Sheridan, and he was recently linked or linked himself - with Jan Molby, Nigel Clough, Marcus Stewart, Vinnie Jones and Chris Powell, with a deal for two Peterborough players pending.
All of which has kept Blues in the news and sustained interest (the average gate of 18,600 is more than double pretakeover levels). But increasingly, Fry appears restless with the rate of progress, berating his board for behaving like a small club by scrapping their youth scheme in response to Bosman and stating that his next signings had to be in the £1 million class.
Sullivan's reluctance to pay Premiership wages scuppered at least one deal. Some observers see this as evidence of a limit to his ambitions. Others sense that he harbours reservations about Fry's capacity to take them on to the next stage.
That is why for Birmingham, and Fry in particular, the Leeds tie represents more than the possibility of a prestigious scalp and a day beneath the twin towers. If the former Barnet manager can outwit Wilkinson, the owners would have to defy popular opinion to deny him a chance to preside over a Blues' ascent to the "big club" status craved by their fans.
Although Fry boasts "I don't do tactics", his tendency to shoot from the lip belies a useful track record. Having won the Second Division, Birmingham are in the pack jostling for play off places. In last year's FA Cup they drew twice with Liverpool before losing on penalties. League Cup victims include Middlesbrough and Norwich, both in replays.
Fry's instincts are positive to a fault. He has a weakness for the long ball, but he also likes wingers and can now call on the midfield subtlety of Sheridan, a player Wilkinson was quick to off load at Elland Road.
Having sold his best young forward, Noel Whelan, to finance the Swede's arrival, Wilkinson omitted Brolin from a depleted line up at Villa Park because of his defensive deficiencies. Such reasoning would battle Fry, whose answer would simply be to attack more. Tony Yeboah's return after his African sojourn can only improve Leeds' options in that respect.
Surprisingly, Wilkinson has no significant advantage over Fry in terms of preparing for a big cup tie, and the prospect of a Brummie derby final against Villa should be all the motivation Birmingham need. One can almost hear Fry in the dressing room, coming on like Del Boy Trotter with a rallying cry of "He who dares wins it".
