Try telling Luke Steele, whose goalkeeping heroics denied Liverpool's multi-millionaires; try telling Brian Howard, whose last-minute winner knocked out the 2006 cup winners, that the world's most prestigious knockout competition is meaningless.
This enthralling fifth-round tie was deep into stoppage time when the Barnsley captain collected the ball just outside the penalty area and swept a low shot into the bottom right-hand corner. Just a moment earlier he had been raging with the referee, who had ignored his claims for a penalty after Sami Hyypia had scythed him down in the box. He wasn't raging now. He was going crazy, like the thrilled travelling support, and the entire Barnsley bench, who reacted to the final whistle by charging on to the pitch.
This was a weakened Liverpool side, distracted by this week's Champions League tie against Inter Milan, but there was no mistaking the humiliation they had only narrowly escaped in the earlier rounds. Long after the final whistle, the cry of "Yanks out" reverberated around the stadium, a reference to the club's controversial owners.
The pity was that more visiting fans hadn't been there to see one of their club's greatest days. The Barnsley board's decision not to restrict season ticket-holders to one ticket each meant that many of the club's most loyal supporters were denied a chance to experience their big day out. At Oakwell, 6,000 more watched on a big screen.
Barnsley's most famous resident of a cricketing persuasion, the retired umpire Dickie Bird, is to have a statue erected in his honour in the town. He was an Anfield yesterday, and was left in doubt as to who the town's new heroes were. "They'll have to put a statue up to the team if they win the cup," he said.
"I've been supporting Barnsley for 70 years and this is the best day I've ever had. An amazing day. I never thought we'd win."
Liverpool excluded Fernando Torres from their squad and Steven Gerrard from the starting lineup, and besieged manager Rafa Benitez had warned his team to expect a physical challenge, but there was more to Barnsley than brawn. For a side up against it in the division below, the visitors were pleasingly willing to work the ball out of defence in neat triangles. The tall, angular frame of Anderson De Silva provided a fulcrum in central midfield, while Diego Leon's repertoire of flicks and backheels showed that he was not intimidated by the occasion.
Having spent Friday night in the hotel occupied by Havant & Waterlooville in the previous round, Barnsley then threatened to further emulate their nonleague counterparts. As the travelling support bordered on hysterical every time their team ventured up the pitch, Liverpool nearly fell behind to inferior opponents for the second successive time in this competition.
When Hyypia was caught in possession just outside his own penalty area Daniel Nardiello picked up the pieces, homed in on goal and found his angled shot thwarted only by the outstretched arm of Charles Itandje.
It was a handy save by the young Frenchman, who appears only in cup-ties for Liverpool. Another intent on exploiting the occasion was Xabi Alonso, whose first-team action has been restricted lately. From his position in front of the defence, he broke forward freely, and tried his luck with an array of first-half shots, the best of which was a curling effort that Steele tipped round the post.
The Spaniard, cheered on by the Kop, also started the move that enabled Liverpool to open the scoring as their superiority gradually began to tell. When he fed Ryan Babel down the left, his teammate rounded the defender, Bobby Hassell, and cut the ball back to the six-yard line. Dirk Kuyt had time to get it under control and slap it over the line from close range.
So the opening goal that had so shocked Liverpool in the previous round was this time in their favour. Benitez had identified that as the key and, in what remained of the opening period, any fears of another embarrassment seemed to be gone.
Steele, on loan from West Bromwich Albion, where he is third-choice goalkeeper, was by now having a busy time, attracting most praise for tipping Peter Crouch's looping header round the post.
Steele had been drafted in as an emergency measure to address the absence of Tony Warner, who was cup-tied. The value of the 23-year-old's first-half efforts were dramatically underlined just 11 minutes after the interval when Barnsley dug deep to produce an equaliser. After Liverpool surrendered possession cheaply in midfield, Martin Devaney picked up the ball and drove at John Arne Riise. While he could hardly be said to have skinned the full-back, he found enough space to swing in a cross with which Stephen Foster connected. Rising above Crouch, of all people, the big defender sent his header in off the goalkeeper's arm.
So much for the first goal being crucial. No sooner had it been wiped out than Barnsley's ecstatic fans were celebrating again, this time in response to a let-off at the other end. Yossi Benayoun, dashing on to a through ball, touched it round the advancing goalkeeper, only to have his shot blocked brilliantly by Hassell.
It was the first of many scrapes from which Barnsley escaped, thanks in the main to Steele. If he wasn't throwing his body in front of Hyypia's wild swipe, he was touching a Lucas header on to the bar and collecting the rebound.
You knew it was growing desperate for Liverpool when Benitez, with only 15 minutes remaining, called on captain Gerrard. If that was supposed to resume normal service, nobody told Barnsley, who twice tested Itandje's nerve from long range. The goalkeeper fumbled a weak shot by De Silva and beat away a better one from Howard.
When he fumbled but saved another, this time from Jamal Campbell-Ryce, there was relief in the home end, but it wasn't to last.
