League Cup — Is it broken if it was never right in the first place?

The League Cup is an unwelcome obstacle in the footballing calendar, with so much already at stake.

As another league cup season spiraled towards its inevitable mid-season conclusion, the same questions perk up again:

-When is it over?
-What fixtures is it affecting?
-Will it salvage the teams’ respective seasons?
-Does anyone care?

Probably not the healthiest environment for a tournament to flourish. Yet, it is where the cup competition now known as the EFL Cup finds itself, grasping for relevance in a world where you can watch Mexican league football or German Polka cup at the few clicks of a button.

Originally, the famed former English head of FIFA, Sir Stanley Rous concocted the idea as a consolation tournament for eliminated FA Cup teams. However, it was only with the advent of European football and its near instant popularity was the League Cup first run. Used as a mechanism for the then mighty Football League to exert control over the FA and to rival its own FA Cup product, it was used as a novel new way to drum up attention in domestic football and give supporters a second bite at a knockout tournament.

In days gone by it maintained an amount of prestige, of relevance. As English clubs were banned from European football in the 1980s, it offered an early season escape from the monotony of unimportant league fixtures. A much-needed bolt of knock-out excitement on those gloomy midweek Autumn evenings while the titans of European battled each other in European capitals.

But even then, with Liverpool’s domestic dominance, it started falling from the general public’s grace. Today it acts as a half-way house for up and coming players at big clubs to get their one shot in the big stadium, to impress the first team boss and catapult their career to where only their dreams could take them before. More pragmatically, that ability to blooden youngsters is the last small shred that small clubs cling to avert the introduction of Big League B-Teams to the lower tiers. The last thing stopping historic league sides from becoming historic non-league sides.

So where does the mighty EFL Cup stand now?

The organisers do not look like they are going to reform the competition — its rules, participants or format anytime soon. Moreover, the prize itself, Europa League football, is hardly desirable for anyone with the ounce of probability of victory. The reality is that the tournament itself will endure. It is not going to change and will continue to be the butt of further pieces of similar scope as this one for years to come.

So sit back and enjoy a match of no particular relevance with a nice trophy presentation afterwards. A half-way house argument for saving the world from B teams populating the lower echelons of the league — stopping historic league sides from becoming historic non-league sides. Is that enough?