Football League Cup

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Carling Cup 2006-07

Football League Cup
Sport	Football
Founded	1961
No. of teams	92
Country	Image:Flag of England (bordered).svg England
Current champions	Manchester United

The Football League Cup, commonly known as the League Cup, is an English football competition. Like the FA Cup, it is played on a knockout (single elimination) basis. Unlike the FA Cup where 674 teams entered in 2005–06, only 92 clubs can enter: the 20 clubs of the FA Premier League, and the 72 clubs of The Football League who organise the competition. Unlike the FA Cup, the semi-finals are played over two legs. The winners qualify for the UEFA Cup, if they have not qualified for European competition in some other way.

Since 1982, the League Cup has been named after its sponsor, giving it the following names:

Milk Cup (1981–82 to 1985–86)
Littlewoods Challenge Cup (1986–87 to 1989–90)
Rumbelows Cup (1990–91 and 1991–92)
Coca-Cola Cup (1992–93 to 1997–98)
Worthington Cup (1998–99 to 2002–03)
Carling Cup (2003–04 to present)

The League Cup is unusual as most other European leagues only offer a single knockout cup competition. It is regarded as the domestic game's least popular trophy that is open to all league sides (the Football League Trophy does not include the top two divisions)[1]. The League Cup usually has lower attendances than the FA Cup (the last sixteen stages of the 2005-06 League Cup had a 25 % lower attendance than the last sixteen of the 2004-05 FA Cup) and it is fairly usual for larger clubs to field a reserve or youth team unless they make it into the later stages.

1 History
2 Format
3 Finals
- 3.1 1961-1966 (two legs)
- 3.2 Since 1967 (single game)
4 Table of winners
5 External links
6 References

[edit] History

During the late 1950s, the majority of senior English clubs equipped their grounds with floodlights. This opened up the opportunity to exploit weekday evenings throughout the winter. The League Cup was introduced in the 1960-61 season specifically as a mid-week floodlit tournament. In the early years of the competition, many of the top teams declined to take part. It was only when automatic entry to the UEFA Cup was promised to the winners that the full League membership took part.

In the last 10 years, following restructuring of European football, and the introduction of the restructured format of the UEFA Champions League, the League Cup was threatened with losing its UEFA Cup slot for its winners. It has retained it thus far however, and along with France is the only nation to offer a UEFA cup slot to its second cup competition winners. Therefore it retains enough importance and popularity, especially with fans of clubs for whom the League cup offers a realistic chance of qualifying for Europe.

Liverpool have won the cup on the most occasions, with seven victories including four successive trophies in the early 1980s. Thanks to winning the competition, Liverpool was able to complete two trebles of trophy wins, in 1984 and 2001. The present holders (2006) are Manchester United, after defeating Wigan Athletic in the final by a record scoreline of 4–0. Goals included 2 from star England striker Wayne Rooney (man of the match) and one from Louis Saha. This game also sparked controversy as United star Ruud Van Nistelrooy was benched, this is believed to be the cause of his departure to Real Madrid. There will be a new holder in 2007, as Manchester United lost 1-0 to Southend United in the round of 16.

[edit] Format

[edit] Preliminary Round

This is only used when the number of teams in European competition affects the number of byes to the third round and it would not be easier to give a club a bye to the second round. The match(es) involve the eligible clubs who finished lowest in the English football league system last season (normally clubs promoted from Conference National).