Key events
As for Villa, Unai Emery leaves out Maatsen, McGinn and Watkins, with Digne, Ramsey and Asensio coming in.
Paul Heckingbottom makes five changes to the site that beat Portsmouth 2-1 two weeks ago. Out go Woodman, Kesler-Harden, Porteos, Lindsay and Ledson; in come Cornell, Hughes, Storey, Brady and Whiteman.
I’m going to write these down, then we’ll consider how things might unfold.
Teams!
Preston North End (5-3-2): Cornell; Brady, Storey, Gibson, Hughes, Meghoma; Thordarson, Whniteman, Frokjaer; Keane, Jakobsen. Subs: Stowell, Lindsay, Bauer, Pasiek, Tarry, Carroll, Mawene, Evans, Osmajic.
Aston Villa (4-2-3-1): Martínez; Cash, Konsa, Mings, Digne; Tielemans, Kamara; Rashford, Rogers, Ramsey; Asensio. Subs: Olsen, Bogarde, Maatsen, Garcia, Torres, Onana, Malen, Watkins, McGinn.
Preamble
Football represents our connection to past and future, an eternal continuum that simultaneously teaches family history and the history of the world. And the stories we’re told, full-on sensory experiences with familiar grammar but idiosyncratic features, allow us to remember things that we don’t remember, part of something local and global, uniform and unique, personal and collective. Football makes us, and our planet, both bigger and smaller.
There are few names in our game more stirringly evocative than that of Preston North End, league champions in the first two seasons of English football, twice FA Cup winners and the club of Tom Finney, Alex Dawson and Bill Shankly. But it’s been a tricky 60 or so years since the last of those moved on, Championship mediocrity their current ennui – each of the last nine seasons have seen them finish between seventh and 14th, which happens to be where they sit at the time of writing.
Nor have the cups offered much joy, which makes this, their first quarter-final since 1966, a game of barely quantifiable resonance. Of course, Villa are nasty opponents, seven-time winners but not since 1957 and without a trophy since 1996; chances are that at some point this afternoon, they move into the last four. Preston, though – players and fans alike – will see the story of their lives as building to this moment and a once-in-a-generation shot at immortality.
Kick-off: 1.30pm BST, baby