REBELS IN A LEAGU UE (CUP) OF THEIR OWN
WEMBLEY FAIRYTALES ARE IN THE PAST AS ‘BIG SIX’ GIANTS DOMINATE THE COMPETITION DESPITE THEIR INDIFFERENCE.
MANCHESTER City and Tottenham meet in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday but its importance will hardly have registered within the corridors of power at the Etihad and White Hart Lane this week. If the build-up to first final of the English football season has been completely overshadowed by the extraordinary emergence and sudden collapse of the European Super League, it is at least a familiar feeling.
Long the second cousin of the FA Cup and distant relative of the Premier League, if it had not been breakaway leagues the clubs involved would have found something else to distract themselves with; both played on Wednesday night, Spurs sacked a manager, City have eyes on next week’s Champions League semi-final. The League Cup final is used to playing second or third fiddle but it could yet get worse than that.
Had the ESL not fallen apart in such dramatic fashion this week, the Wembley showdown could well have marked the last appearance by this year’s finalists in the grand old competition. The breakaway league may have bitten the dust but the threat to the League Cup remains.
Even before last Sunday’s bombshell, the proposed reforms of the Champions League being pushed by Uefa – which seem to have gone through almost without question this week – already called into question the continued involvement of the Premier League’s biggest clubs in the League Cup.
Last autumn, the Project Big Picture proposals also appeared to sound the death knell of the English Football League’s flagship knockout competition. That threat, like the ESL, was killed off. But as long as the desire for reform amidst the game’s biggest clubs remains, the future of the competition remains in doubt.
In truth, a competition which kicked off as recently as 1960 has been fighting a rearguard action for relevance for decades now.
The likes of Manchester United and Arsenal began showing scant commitment to the poor relation of English trophies in the 1990s, fielding
shadow teams in the early rounds, blooding young talents and rarely playing their strongest teams until Wembley was within reach.
The disregard in which it was held by the mighty may actually have been a boost to the League Cup around the turn of the century, with ‘big six’ disinterest meaning Leicester, Blackburn, Middlesbrough, Birmingham and Swansea all managed to taste glory in the final between 2000 and 2013.
And yet, despite their ongoing indifference, the biggest clubs and managers have largely dominated the competition in recent years.
Manchester City, despite being hellbent on claiming the Champions League, have won the last three Carabao Cup finals and five of the last seven. If they make it four in a row on Sunday, Pep Guardiola will become the most successful manager in the competition’s history
– a feat that was also within the grasp of Jose Mourinho until his sacking by Tottenham on Monday.
Long treated as an afterthought by big outfits with eyes on bigger prizes, their power and wealth is now such that they have still come to dominate the competition which means least to them – their ability to win it without really trying a clear marker of the financial imbalance in the modern game.
It wasn’t always this way. Between 1967 and 1988 Luton, Oxford, Swindon and QPR all had their name engraved on the famous trophy. Norwich, Wolves and Birmingham have all won it twice.
The success of these small and medium-sized clubs may diminish the importance of the League Cup in the eyes of some but they also give the competition its lustre and history and, in turn, the victorious finals gave several sides the greatest days in their history. It is also a competition Tottenham should think twice before turning their backs on.
They may have been one of European Super League’s ‘founding clubs’ but take away the League Cup and they haven’t won a trophy in 30 years. No wonder their involvement in the breakaway plans attracted such widespread ridicule.
But while the prospect of divorce from the biggest sides has receded for now, the League Cup should prepare for and even embrace the possibility of change, bringing as it does the opportunity for renewal, with new and eager names on the trophy and different sets of supporters in the Wembley stands.
Fewer star names and smaller ‘legacy fanbases’ perhaps, but players and supporters who really want to be there might be just the shot in the arm the competition needs. Instead, we have two clubs who joined a scheme which would have ended English football as we know it, fighting for the flagship trophy of an organisation which publicly condemned their plans.
Awkward. Or, maybe it won’t be so bad after all. When the whistle goes, it will simply be two teams kicking a ball, striving to lift a trophy, cheered on (mercifully) by their supporters in the Wembley stands. The essence of football if you like.
As Kevin De Bruyne, one of several Premier League stars to speak powerfully and eloquently of their opposition to the European Super League, put it: ‘We know this is a big business and I know I am a part of this business. But I am still a little boy who just loves to play football.’
On Sunday afternoon, for 90 minutes at least, that’s all that matters. After a week of talk, a lot of it ugly, at last some action to provide blessed relief.