The Bantams will find out their first opponents of the new 2017/2018 campaign this Friday (16 June 2017) when the first round draw of the Carabao Cup takes place.
The draw for Round One of the 2017/18 Carabao Cup - formerly the EFL Cup - will be streamed live from Bangkok, Thailand on Friday at 1:00pm (UK time).
World Cup winner Emmanuel Petit, Carabao CEO Sathien Setthasit, British Ambassador to Thailand Brian Davidson and EFL Chief Executive Shaun Harvey will unveil the 35 Round One ties from the home of the competition’s title sponsor, Carabao Energy Drink.
City fans will be able to watch the draw unfold live on various platforms, including iFollow Bantams, on Facebook via the Carabao Cup and Carabao UK pages and SkySports.com.
Nearly 1.5 million people went to matches in the EFL Cup last season as the competition recorded record breaking attendances. Victory in the competition’s final will guarantee the winner the first piece of silverware of the domestic season and a place in the Europa League in the following campaign.
Seventy EFL Clubs will be in the draw with matches scheduled to take place week commencing 7 August, with Sunderland included. Championship newcomers Hull City and Middlesbrough will join the competition in Round Two alongside the Premier League clubs that are not competing in Europe.
The draw is also regionalised to minimise travelling time for supporters in the first round with seeding decided by a Club’s finishing position in the EFL.
Due to City's top half finish in Sky Bet League One last season, the Bantams will be seeded in Friday's draw.
As result, City, who will be ball number four, will face an unseeded northern team in the first round.
Unseeded teams are those from Sky Bet League Two, or sides who finished in the bottom half of League One.
This year’s final in February saw Manchester United beat Southampton 3-2 in front of over 85,000 people. The 2017/18 Carabao Cup Final, the 58th in the competition’s history, will take place at Wembley Stadium on 25th February.
Due to the global appeal of the competition, Carabao, the Thai energy drinks brand, became title sponsor to the competition and official EFL partner earlier this year, with the exclusive partnership running until 2020. It is anticipated that the relationship with Carabao Energy Drink will increase that further, providing the opportunity to reach new audiences in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The EFL Carabao partnership also represents a truly powerful and unique platform to expand the Carabao brand and establish Carabao as a major player in the global Energy Drinks market.
The newly named Carabao Cup offers a significant opportunity for the Thai brand to engage with football fans - a third of whom drink energy drinks - via its association with one of the biggest football competitions in the country, and Carabao plans to bring this partnership to life at every opportunity for customers and consumers.
As well as the partnership with the EFL, Carabao Energy Drink is also a Principal Partner of the Premier League champions, Chelsea FC, and the Sky Bet Championship Play-Off Finalists, Reading FC. Internationally, Carabao is also a partner of Flamengo in Brazil and Apollon FC in Cyprus.
Carabao, established fifteen years ago in Thailand, the home of energy drinks, is a premium, great tasting energy boost, designed to give consumers the energy they need to achieve their everyday goals. The drink takes inspiration from ’the Carabao’, the revered Asian water-buffalo, admired for its physical power, extraordinary stamina and unbreakable spirit.
Carabao is sold in 330ml cans and currently available in four variants: Original, Sugar Free, Green Apple and Green Apple Sugar Free, with further flavour launches planned before the end of 2017.
North – Seeds 1. Barnsley 2. Blackburn Rovers 3. Bolton Wanderers 4. Bradford City 5. Burton Albion 6. Derby County 7. Fleetwood Town 8. Leeds United 9. Nottingham Forest 10. Preston North End 11. Rochdale 12. Rotherham United 13. Scunthorpe United 14. Sheffield United 15. Sheffield Wednesday 16. Sunderland 17. Wigan Athletic
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North – Non-Seeds 18. Accrington Stanley 19. Blackpool 20. Bury 21. Carlisle United 22. Chesterfield 23. Coventry City 24. Crewe Alexandra 25. Doncaster Rovers 26. Grimsby Town 27. Lincoln City 28. Mansfield Town 29. Morecambe 30. Notts County 31. Oldham Athletic 32. Port Vale 33. Shrewsbury Town 34. Walsall
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South – Seeds 1. Aston Villa 2. Birmingham City 3. Brentford 4. Bristol City 5. Bristol Rovers 6. Cardiff City 7. Charlton Athletic 8. Fulham 9. Ipswich Town 10. Millwall 11. Milton Keynes Dons 12. Norwich City 13. Oxford United 14. Peterborough United 15. Queens Park Rangers 16. Reading 17. Southend United 18. Wolverhampton Wanderers
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South – Non-Seeds 19. AFC Wimbledon 20. Barnet 21. Cambridge United 22. Cheltenham Town 23. Colchester United 24. Crawley Town 25. Exeter City 26. Forest Green Rovers 27. Gillingham 28. Luton Town 29. Newport County 30. Northampton Town 31. Plymouth Argyle 32. Portsmouth 33. Stevenage 34. Swindon Town 35. Wycombe Wanderers 36. Yeovil Town
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