A little bit of trivia

As you might have heard last week, Rangers beat Celtic on penalties to book their spot in the Scottish cup final. They will be meeting Hibernian after they also emerged victorious in a spot kick shootout the previous day. The amazing thing is that both Rangers and Hibernian are first division teams. In the next few weeks Hibernian could be joining Rangers in getting promotion but on that particular road it remains to be seen. A non top flight cup final and it did get me thinking, when was the last time we had a non top flight cup final in Europe first of all and then elsewhere. This is what I found.

Europe:
1994 Norwegian Cup
When Rangers and Hibernian play on May 21st it will be the first non-top division national cup final in Europe since 1994 in Norway. This one also featured two 2nd tier sides in Molde and Lyn Oslo. It was Molde who emerged victorious and it capped a pretty good season for them as they also got promoted. This was the era in which winning the national cup earned Cup winners cup qualification and the following season Molde overcame Dinamo 93 Minsk in the qualifying round before succumbing to Paris Saint-Germain in the first round proper 6-2 on aggregate.

1989-90 FAI Cup
Until Molde and Lyn Oslo met in 1994, the 1989-90 FAI Cup final was the last time a national cup final was contested between sides not in the top tier. Bray Wanderers were a first division side while St Francis were non-league (Leinster senior league which is completely amateur). Bray would end up running out 3-0 winners and qualify for the following season's cup winner cup. They fell at the first hurdle which was the qualifying round against Trabzonspor of Turkey. However this cup final remains to date the last time a non-league side has reached the FAI cup final.

Other occasions
The 1980s featured two other non top flight cup finals in Sweden and Poland. The Swedish final in 1986-87 saw Kalmar beat GAIS 2-0 while in 1982-83 Lechia Gdansk, then a 3rd tier team overcame Piast Gliwice 2-1.
The 70s saw four non top flight cup finals in Norway, Poland, Denmark and Romania.

Rest of the World:
2015 Mayotte Cup
Mayotte are not members of FIFA or CAF but this 2015 cup final deserves a mention as it features two sides not even in the top two tiers in the league. It was won by fourth tier side Olympique Miréréni as they beat third tier side FC Labattoir 5-4 on penalties.

Other occasions
In 2013 the Guinea-Bissau cup final was played between two 3rd tier sides, Mexico's 2012 showpiece was an all 2nd tier affair. In the past twelve years there have been non-top flight cup finals in Japan, Senegal, DR Congo, Peru, Chile and Surinam.