“WELCOME to Wembley” veteran Barry Devlin says as he walks out for training at Churchill Reserve, motioning to a pitch that leaves a fair bit to be desired.

On a chilly Thursday night in St Albans, north-west of Melbourne, jovial Saints players file in from work or university for the penultimate session before the game of their lives.

The light is dim, the pitch is uneven, bumpy and bare in patches, but in this moment the players from the Victorian second division club couldn’t care less.

About 3500km away A-League team Perth Glory trains on a pristine surface, at a time and in conditions that suit them best.

media_camera St Albans players putting up the nets before training.

For Glory players the game is a profession. For St Albans players it’s purely a passion.

The two clubs, two sets of players, are worlds apart in more ways than one, but on Tuesday night at Knights Stadium they will share the pitch as equals hoping to propel their team in to the quarterfinals of the FFA Cup.

Saints players break out in to song after warming up. “Stand By Me” is an appropriate choice given that the 11 that take the pitch against the Glory are going to have to be a united, resolute force to cause a monumental upset.

The record of local teams against A-League teams in the first-ever FFA Cup isn’t great — just look at Melbourne Victory’s 6-0 rout of Tuggeranong United in Canberra last week.

media_camera St Albans players training at Churchill Reserve.

But Adelaide City knocked off Western Sydney Wanderers in the Round of 32 last month and players at St Albans, be they experienced or inexperienced, say they have “nothing to lose” in their pursuit of a similar result.

Felix Rosman, 37, is the wise head of the Saints defence.

He’s won Victorian Premier League titles at Port Melbourne and Oakleigh and teammate Adam Nakic says “you pretty much ask any person in Victorian football ‘who is Felix Rosman?’ and they’ll say he’s the best centre back to ever play VPL”.

Nakic, 20, is a defensive utility.

He’s at the other end of his career and hopes that there “might be someone out there” who’s watching and likes what they see from him.

“You can do a couple of special things and they might say ‘I like what that kid has to offer’,” Nakic says.

Rosman says he’s “sad” that the “long overdue” FFA Cup has come at this stage of his career.

“So I just hope that all the young guys just take this opportunity,” Rosman says.

“To have this opportunity at my age, I’m still pinching myself. But the young boys are coming along at the right time, I’ve sort of done the hard yards when we didn’t have things like this.”

But there’s a hope — a quiet confidence even — that this may not be their final foray in the national knockout competition.

media_camera St Albans players in their dressing room.

No matter that their’s is a part-time playing group pitted against a club with an annual salary cap of $2.55m — they think they can win.

“Over a league season things tend to even out,” Rosman says.

“But in a one-off match, it’s 90 minutes, you just never know. All the pressure is on them, there’s no pressure on us.

“In matches like this, the lower team tends to play 10 per cent above themselves and we just want to get them to drop down to our level.

“We want to frustrate them, that’s part of the plan.”