{"id":561852,"date":"2020-08-13T08:49:28","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T12:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=561852"},"modified":"2020-12-28T11:24:35","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T16:24:35","slug":"carabao-cup-to-kickstart-efl-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/08\/13\/carabao-cup-to-kickstart-efl-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Carabao Cup to Kickstart EFL Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Carabao Cup fixtures will open the 2020\/21 EFL season. The first four rounds of the competition will be played in September.<\/p>\n<p>September 5 is the date marked for first-round fixtures in the competition, but this could change if international fixtures pose a scheduling problem.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sky Sports News <\/em>will play host to the first-round draw, which takes place on 18 August. As was the case last season, the draw will be unseeded, and is to be divided into Northern and Southern sections.<\/p>\n<h2>Carabao Cup Will Start EFL Season<\/h2>\n<h3>Two-Legged Semi-Finals Scrapped<\/h3>\n<p>Following the first-round fixtures, rounds two, three and four are to be played as consecutive midweek matches from 15 and 16 September.<\/p>\n<p>This is a significant date in the diaries of Premier League clubs. Top flight teams enter the competition in round two or three, depending on their league positions in the 2019\/20 season.<\/p>\n<p>In a change from last-season\u2019s format, two-legged semi-finals will be scrapped in the 2020\/21 edition of the competition. Instead, single-match ties will determine which teams make the final. Whichever team comes out of the semi-final draw first will receive the advantage of hosting the tie at their ground.<\/p>\n<p>This represents a similar format to the one used to conclude this season\u2019s Champions League and Europa League tournaments. The difference is that this season\u2019s European competitions are being played out in neutral venues.<\/p>\n<p>Pep Guardiola\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/manchester-city\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Manchester City<\/a> have enjoyed three consecutive Carabao Cup victories. Last season, the Cityzens saw off <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/aston-villa-club-news-analysis-fixtures\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aston Villa<\/a> with a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/2020\/03\/01\/carabao-cup-final-manchester-city-beat-aston-villa-to-win-competition-for-third-straight-year\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2-1 victory<\/a> in the final at Wembley.<\/p>\n<h3>Carabao Cup Schedule as of 13 August 2020<\/h3>\n<p>As is detailed on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11095\/12048348\/carabao-cup-to-kick-off-efl-season-first-four-rounds-to-be-played-in-september\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sky Sports<\/a>, the competition dates for next season\u2019s competition are as follows:<\/p>\n<p>5 September \u2013 Round one<\/p>\n<p>15 and 16 September \u2013 Round two<\/p>\n<p>22 and 23 September \u2013 Round three<\/p>\n<p>29 and 30 September \u2013 Round four<\/p>\n<p>22 and 23 December \u2013 Round five<\/p>\n<p>5 and 6 January \u2013 Semi-finals<\/p>\n<p>28 February \u2013 Final<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"qYv7Zt2MRnlPMdtL_VHEbw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/975174178\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'qYv7Zt2MRnlPMdtL_VHEbw',sig:'_HYDw9Y9W_ciK4ioZ9FK0__UM-1T9sJ_yVShJb2qhhk=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'975174178',caption: false ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carabao Cup fixtures will open the 2020\/21 EFL season. The first four rounds of the competition will be played in September. September 5 is the date marked for first-round fixtures in the competition, but this could change if international fixtures pose a scheduling problem. Sky Sports News will play host to the first-round draw, which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3563,"featured_media":561859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,30,3],"tags":[1602,168,40,136],"class_list":["post-561852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-news","category-premier-league","tag-carabao-cup","tag-efl","tag-premier-league","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3563"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}