On Sunday afternoon, one team will have a chance to end one of English football’s great droughts, to enshrine themselves in the folklore of a city, to ensure that they will never have to pay for a drink in their town ever again. As for the other guys, well it’d certainly put a nice ending on a week that has been so bruising for them otherwise.
It is not that the EFL Cup does not matter for Liverpool, or even that the outcome of the final cannot change the tone of their season. It is simply that its importance to the Premier League champions in waiting is nothing to Newcastle United, out to end their wait for major silverware before it gets truly ludicrous. Somewhere on Tyneside there is presumably someone born on June 11, 1969, the date when the Magpies won their last major silverware, the now-defunct Inter-City Fairs Cup. It would be nice to add to the trophy cabinet before that individual reaches the state pension age.
Alexander Isak proves why he’s one of world’s best after taking Newcastle past Arsenal and into EFL Cup final
James Benge
There have been misses since — the 1974 FA Cup Final against Sunday’s opponent, a run through the Europa League in 2012-13 that promised much — but only the great entertainers built by Kevin Keegan and carried on by Kenny Dalglish in the mid 1990s have looked as well placed as this team to break the curse.
Eddie Howe’s side, backed by the transformative wealth of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, are tailor made to take on the best in the land. They showed as much in a semifinal against Arsenal where they rode the moments on the back foot, trusting that star forward Alexander Isak could win it for them at the other end. Newcastle have had to get to Wembley the hard way, beating Chelsea and Brentford on their way to the Arsenal semifinal they won so emphatically. That rather suits this team.
The muscularity of their technically excellent midfield allows them to drag top level teams into more brawly occasions than they might like, the pace they have when the out-balls go to Anthony Gordon (who is suspended for this final), Jacob Murphy and Isak allows them to puncture many a high line. They will certainly miss Gordon’s dynamism at Wembley, as they will the defensive left side of Sven Botman and Lewis Hall.
They will still have the quality to win on Sunday — any team with Isak and Bruno Guimaraes can win a one off match — the question might be whether they have the temperament. Two years ago Newcastle were unfortunate to run into a Manchester United side in their one good patch of form under Erik ten Hag and equally unlucky that Nick Pope’s injury and Martin Dubravka’s having played for their opponents earlier in the competition meant they had to field third choice goalkeeper Loris Karius. Equally, it seemed the moment got to them at Wembley.
Howe seemed to acknowledge as much on Friday, emphasizing that the mood in the camp felt “very different” to the 2023 final. “We’ve gone about our business in a really calm, professional way,” he said. “We’ve had a really tough run in the Carabao Cup, we’ve gone round to round and ended up in the final. We are very positive. There’s been a lot less emotion and a lot less noise from outside. Hopefully that helps us.
How to watch and odds
- Date: Sunday, March 16 | Time: 12:30 p.m. ET
- Location: Wembley Stadium — London, England
- Live stream: Paramount+
- Odds: Liverpool -150; Draw +310; Newcastle United +390
“I think [the trophy drought is] a real motivation for us to try to break that long time and that long wait that everyone’s feeling. It should be inspiring for us – not a negative. It’s a chance to make history for us as a team – that’s very rare in football.”
Certainly what history there is to be made for Liverpool is a little more esoteric. There will be no treble, but a win on Sunday would draw Arne Slot’s men level with Manchester United for the most domestic cups won in England. Some time in April or May they will tie their great rivals on 20 top flight titles. Add in their superior record in the European Cup and the statistical case that the greatest team in the country plays at Anfield becomes hard to debate.
Not that the grand sweep of English footballing history will be on Liverpool minds now. Despite Slot’s continuing insistence that there are “nine finals” left to play in the Premier League, that has been in the bag since last month at the very least, arguably since mid-January. With the Champions League now out of the picture, there is the possibility that a defeat on Sunday might set the season’s final march on a trudging pace. Or at least more downbeat than might be expected for a club awaiting that first league title celebration in front of supporters in a generation.
Even Slot himself cannot help but contextualize a final around a devastating defeat in a round of 16 tie earlier this week. “It’s a great occasion to be in and especially after losing against Paris Saint-Germain we are really looking forward to playing this final now against, again, a very good and well-managed team by Eddie Howe with Newcastle,” he told club media.
“We’ve tried to win every competition we were in. Unfortunately we were already out of the FA Cup and unfortunately after Tuesday we are out of the Champions League as well, so there are now only two trophies for us to win. I think in general the Premier League is the hardest one to win of all of them because it’s 38 games and you have to do so many things well. Cups – and even the Champions League, although those are played over two rounds – are ‘easier’ to win, but still very difficult!”
Slot went on to note how last year Liverpool had won this final with a set piece and on Tuesday his side had failed to make use of 13 of them. For all that a first visit to Wembley evidently means a great deal to the Dutchman, it seems clear he would have liked to be heading there to secure the first part of a treble.
That, ultimately, is what separates the true elite even from contenders for Champions League qualification like Newcastle. The EFL Cup could only ever be an embellishment for Slot, a nice start to a season defined by the biggest prizes. For their opponents, meanwhile, history beckons.
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