Carling Cup Betting

The Carling Cup is the second biggest cup competition in England. All teams in the Premier League and Football League are invited to take part in the competition. This cup differs to the other cup competition, the FA Cup, in that all matches up to the final are in midweek and up to the semi finals are just one leg with extra time and penalties played if the game is a draw after 90 minutes. Also unlike the FA Cup, the Carling Cup semi finals are played over 2 legs.

The competition begins in August with just the Football League sides entering in the first round. The winners go into a seeded second round where the Premier League teams who aren’t involved in European competition enter. The teams who are in European competition enter in the 3^rd round of the competition which holds its final on the last weekend in February at Wembley Stadium.

Carling Cup Previous Winners:

2002 – Blackburn Rovers

2003 – Liverpool

2004 – Middlesbrough

2005 – Chelsea

2006 – Manchester United

2007 – Chelsea

2008 – Tottenham Hotspur

2009 – Manchester United

2010 – Manchester United

2011 - Birmingham City

Carling Cup Betting

Carling Cup betting can be tricky because the big clubs are known to rest a lot of their main players so team news is even more vital than normal in this competition. That does mean that some tasty prices can be found once the required team news has been obtained. The normal football match betting is offered on this market and 2-3 ties per round are televised.

Outright betting can often be profitable in this competition because the tournament often throws up surprise finalists. Not all the finalists have been from the Premier League either with sides from the Championship having made the final since the turn of the century. Some lower sides target this competition as a real chance of silverware with the big clubs not focusing on it so much and that can lead to juicy payouts for punters on the outright market. The 2012 final being a good example with Championship side Cardiff City facing Liverpool at Wembley.