Who Really Needs What Out of the League Cup By Donald C Stewart

Date: 31st July 2026

Who Really Needs What Out of the League Cup

By Donald C Stewart

As I sit and write this, my own team are sitting atop their League Cup qualifying stage and should they beat Alloa Athletic (they did), will go into the last 16 round qualified and therefore seeded (they were).

Seedings are important.

They take form teams and put them on one side of the draw, alongside our European competitors, ensuring that there is a way to argue later, that upsets were likely to happen because the wrong seeding was made.

They can allow big teams to last longer in a cup competition, and smaller teams can sometimes feel a little unfairly treated.

I don’t have much of a problem with that, because it also means lower league teams can get big one-off paydays.

But it is exciting when the Scottish Cup has a couple of lower league teams in the semi-finals or in the quarter finals and it seems more democratic. It’s not really, but the opportunity to get some cash as you progress further in the competition is always welcome, the lower down the leagues you go.

As I read through the BBC’s excellent guide to the last weekend of the Scottish League Cup and who needs what, I was struck not by the various permutations that were there, but the fact that St Mirren last year came from the group stages and won it. It was truly a long haul. St Mirren winning the League Cup was not some kind of gimme. It always feels less of an achievement in comparison to the Scottish Cup – it doesn’t have the same lustre.

I think it doesn’t necessarily have the same appeal to sponsors who want to be associated with the premium cup that is the second longest fought over, trophy in the world.

However, to actually win the League Cup from the group stages is more difficult than winning the Scottish Cup.

Quite rightly, teams who are in Europe are given delayed entry both into the League Cup and into the Scottish Cup, but it means that in the Scottish Cup, what is it, four games that you have to win in order to win it. When you’re already winning on a regular basis in the Premier League against teams that you might come up against…

The cup is a one-off game and a different competition to playing teams in the league, but there are few teams who are in the top six of the Premiership who are being held to account by the bottom six, year on year.

The Scottish Cup is looking very “samey”; the League Cup feels slightly more exciting.

Part of the reason is the way in it has been put together. Again, where credit is due, the SFA and the SPFL need some credit for that.

Firstly, the group stages include teams who are on the periphery of the SPFL. So, we get Brechin City, Linlithgow Rose. It is good to see them competing in leagues opposite the likes of Alloa and East Kilbride and so on.

Secondly, the innovation of having no extra time and going straight to penalties is helpful. Along with an extra point up for grabs in a full-time draw, through penalties, it has heightened the tension. One of the things that Americans have often struggled with, is the idea that soccer has draws. Here we have eliminated that.

The third thing that works is it has removed many meaningless friendlies. The glamour ties allegedly that were put in place for teams who get a chance to compete against touring English teams or foreign teams that they wouldn’t otherwise get a chance to face.

I remember watching Arsenal with Charlie Nicholas and Manchester United with Paul Pogba come to Somerset Park. Was it a treat? Well, not really. We got absolutely hammered. It wasn’t a treat to watch your team be hammered by a team like that. Was it good to see the visiting teams and their players up close? To an extent. But they were experimenting with their selection and their formation as much as we were, obviously much more successfully. It was so strange, hat even hydration breaks wouldn’t feel out of place.

The innovation that’s been brought in, the removal of rubbish games, and an opportunity to see your team in a competitive way prior to their league run is always good.

One of the other things that I’ve noticed over the years with the League Cup is that if your team does really well in the league format, it’s not really an indication how well they’re going to do in your league. Often, they are up against lesser teams if they come from the likes of the Championship, and maybe a Premier League team who are still waiting to fire on any cylinders. But it entertains.

Next up is going to be the B&Q Centenary Cup, or whatever it’s called now, where that also takes the European format of a bigger league, which was really interesting last year, and shows yet another degree of copycat innovation that we should applaud.

Who’s likely to win it at the end? Well, can you name who won it last season? I can. (It was Raith Rovers) I can also mention who won both of the big cups, and what we hope this year is that they have similar levels of diversity – or maybe an increase…

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Tags: ayr utd, Scottish fans, Scottish football, Scottish League Cup