Leicester City to face Liverpool at home in the Carabao Cup

Leicester City’s win against Sheffield United in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday has been rewarded with a 3rd round fixture at the King Power against Liverpool. The matches will be played at an as-yet undetermined date and time during the week of 18 September.

These teams have faced each other 107 times in all competitions since 1895, with the Foxes winning 38, drawing 24, and losing 45 of times. Surprisingly, only one of these meetings has been in the league cup, that being on 29 October, 1986, when a Steve McMahon hat-trick and a goal from Kenny Dalglish knocked the Foxes out of the third round of the cup at Anfield.

The match will be played right as Liverpool’s Champions League campaign is getting under way. The Foxes know all too well how distracting European football can be after last year’s successes in Europe* so there’s good reason to expect that the we will have the upper hand when the match is played next month.

Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images

On a side note, the draw was held in Beijing, meaning that the ties were announced at 4:15 AM in England. I understand wanting to appeal to a world-wide audience, but this is a real insult to the supporters of every club involved. I can’t even imagine that it was effective as a publicity stunt unless there are more fans who are excited by “watching a man pull balls out of a cup” than I’ve been lead to believe.

* There was no need to mention the fact that we made it to the quarter finals of the Champions League last year, but I will never pass up the opportunity to wedge it in to the story. Never.