English League Cup - go to Olympus

Cup English League, the expediency of which is regularly questioned on Foggy Albion, is of great importance primarily for the numerous clubs in the lower divisions, the so-called "quagmire" of the English football pyramid. Those whose club museums are not too burdened with trophies and regalia, the English League Cup gives a unique chance to meet with the leading teams of England, the grandees of European football, to play at the biggest stadiums of the country, to announce itself at the top of his voice and slightly replenish the club cash desk. This is the uniqueness of this tournament.

The English League Cup, established in 1960, from the very beginning caused a flurry of criticism and cool attitude towards itself from the grandees. The first draw of the tournament was ignored by Arsenal, Tottenham, West Bromwich and Wolves. And Liverpool refused to participate in this tournament between 1962 and 1968.

The English League Cup is played out among 92 clubs of professional divisions. 20 of them represent the Premier League and 72 - three lower levels of the English football hierarchy. The winner of the tournament gets the right to start in the next draw of the Europa League. If, of course, he did not get a ticket to the European Cups through the championship. In this case, the right to participate in the LE is transferred to the finalist.

The League Cup is a real unique chance for small clubs to once rise on their football Olympus. Many in Foggy Albion believe that only in the lower divisions begins real English football. England, whose championship has always been one of the strongest on the continent, in 1991, established a super-successful and super-profitable project - the Premier League.

The busyness of the leading English clubs and the richness of their calendar reached its apogee. Sometimes they have to spend 60-70 matches of the highest level and heat in the season. Almost simultaneously with the Premier League, there was added not less successful, prestigious and profitable offspring of UEFA - the Champions League. Here are the grants of English football and use the league cup to rotate the composition and as a testing ground for "breaking in" the youth. Plus, an insufficient level of motivation from the grandees. This is the secret of the rare successes of the clubs of the lower floors of the English football building.

So, in the CL season 2012/2013 "Bradford", representing League 2, the fourth level of the English football pyramid, managed to reach the finals, where he lost to Swansea, representing the Premier League. This was the first time since 1962 when the team from the very bottom of professional English football managed to reach the final. Then, in a similar manner, the supernumerary Rochdale distinguished, who eventually lost to Norwich.

But the achievement of "Bradford" still became unique. He is the only one in history who managed to beat three representatives of the Premier League in the course of his triumphal procession to the moment of glory - Wigan, Aston Villa and Arsenal. The author of the decisive goal at the Villans' goal, James Hanson, before sending the Birmingham players overboard the tournament, could not score 843 minutes, as if accumulating all his bombardier potential for a personal starry-hour ...

Procession of "Bradford" at the tournament distance is a beautiful fairy tale with a sad end (0: 5 in the final from "Swansea City"). This team proved to the whole country (and perhaps Europe - the final of the KL was broadcasted to many countries of the continent) that not only in the Premier League can play football. The FA Cup, the oldest club tournament in the world, unlike KL, gives such a unique chance not only to professionals, but also to several hundred amateur and semi-professional clubs of numerous divisions of the Conference. For example, in the 2007/2008 season 731 teams took part in the drawing of the spacecraft. In this very prestigious tournament reigns the true spirit of uncompromising English football.