The first trophy up for grabs for clubs from the English top-flight football in 2024 took placed yesterday with the 2023/2024 EFL Cup Final between Chelsea and Liverpool. Both English and European football juggernauts pushed each other till the very end of the normal playing time plus injury minutes as well as the extra time period, but there could only one winner in this 2023/2024 EFL Cup Final, and it was Jürgen Klopp’s Reds who took home the eventual title, and the triumph is also Liverpool’s 10th in the history of the competition, making them the only team with double-digit wins in the EFL Cup Finals.
Chelsea’s and Liverpool’s Routes to the 2023/2024 EFL Cup Final
Let us first take a look at how Mauricio Pochettino’s Blues and Klopp’s Reds made into the Final of the 2023/2024 EFL Cup before we dived into the details of the finale. For five-time winners of the competition Chelsea, they first defeated Brighton & Hove Albion 1-0 in the Third Round, followed by a 2-0 victory against Blackburn Rovers in the Fourth Round. The London club’s next games in the competition were not easy at all as they only managed to overcome Newcastle United on penalties in the Quarterfinal and had to recover from a 1-0 deficit to thrash Middlesbrough in the Semifinal of the 2023/2024 EFL Cup.
In Liverpool’s case, they first skipped past Leicester City with ease on a 3-1 score line, and gained momentum by eliminating Bournemouth 2-1 in the next phase of the tournament. The Reds’ journey to the 2023/2024 EFL Cup Final was completed with their 5-1 and 3-2 victories versus West Ham United and Fulham in the Last Eight and Last Four respectively.
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The 2024 #CarabaoCupFinal is under way!#EFL | #CarabaoCup
— Carabao Cup (@Carabao_Cup) February 25, 2024
Captain Fantastic: Van Dijk Delivered the Sucker Punch to Win Liverpool the 2023/2024 EFL Cup
The first controversial moment of the 2023/2024 EFL Cup Final was spotted before the half-time whistle, when Chelsea’s Ben Chilwell and Liverpool’s Conor Bradley were involved in an altercation, leading the referee to award a yellow card each as a result. The game itself was a tight contest between both sides, and credits have to be given to Liverpool for managing to hold the fort against the Blues for the entire game in the normal playing time, injury time as well as extra time, since Klopp’s men are without an extended list of key players.
Just when everyone thought the 2023/2024 EFL Cup Final between two English Premier League clubs were to be decided on penalties, the Reds finally scored the first goal of the game, following Virgil van Dijk’s strike. 2022 FIFA World Cup-winning midfielder from Argentina Alexis Mac Allister was fouled at the left flank of Chelsea’s half, and Liverpool was given a freekick set piece as a result. To Liverpool camp’s delight, Konstantinos Tsimikas’s delivery found the rising Van Dijk, and the 32-year-old captain for both club and country levels at Liverpool and Netherlands could no wrong from close range, heading in the winning goal of this 2023/2024 EFL Cup Final as a result.
Van Dijk was subsequently voted the Man of the Match in this 2023/2024 EFL Cup Final with his winning goal, and the Dutchman went on to lift Liverpool’s tenth EFL Cup trophy as the skipper of Klopp’s Reds. With their outstanding run to lift the eventual title last night, Liverpool are also now at least two trophies more than the next best-performing team in the history of the EFL Cup.
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