Carabao Cup 2023/24: Key Dates, Rounds, Final and More | OneFootball

Manchester United will be looking to defend their Carabao Cup trophy during the 2023/2024 season after defeating Newcastle United in the final at Wembley Stadium.

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The Carabao Cup will be the first piece of silverware on offer, that's if you don't count the Community Shield.

It may not be everyone's cup of tea, however, the Carabao Cup offers teams outside the traditional big six a solid chance at securing some silverware.

This article has been generated based on substantiated reporting with dates, locations and information provided by the EFL. Here is everything we know so far about the 2023/2024 Carabao Cup.

Key Dates and Rounds

Fans can now plot their path to victory in the Carabao Cup after the dates for fixtures were released to the public.

As ever, the Carabao Cup gets underway early in the football calendar and also finishes before any other domestic cup competition.

Final

The first major piece of silverware will be won on Sunday, 25 February 2024. That is the usual date for the League Cup final to take place.

The final of the Carabao Cup will take place at Wembley Stadium, in the City of London, the traditional host ground of English Cup finals.

Despite earning the unwanted nickname of the "Mickey Mouse Cup", the Carabao Cup has far greater meaning than that and can make or break any club's season.

Who will be playing in the Carabao Cup 2023/2024 final? We will have to wait and see.

Qualification and Rules

The Carabao Cup is only open to the 92 teams who play their football in the EFL. However, despite the better standard of teams playing in the competition, it is still viewed as second fiddle to the FA Cup.

So all you need to do is be one of the 92 teams that make up the Football League and Premier League. 24 League Two teams, 24 League One teams, 24 Championship teams and 20 top-tier teams qualify for the competition every season.

Nevertheless, depending on what league you are in, teams enter the Carabao Cup at different stages, as highlighted in the key dates and rounds above.

Extra time was scrapped for all rounds apart from the final in 2019. This means that if teams are level after 90 minutes, they will progress straight to penalties.

The away goals rule was also scrapped for semi-final fixtures back in 2019 and VAR technology is allowed to be used at Premier League grounds during Carabao Cup fixtures.

Tickets

At the time of writing, ticket information has yet to be announced. We will update this section as soon as more details emerge in the coming months.