EFL Trophy (Papa John's Trophy) Draw

For Winners and Runnerup it's the same (although Additional Revenues such as TV income sees the clubs taking part get a much bigger cut than they do in the carabao cup) but beyond that its much higher. Just taking part gets you £20k rather than £5k for going out first round in the CC. Winning the first round of the CC gets you £7k but winning a group game gets you 10k and a draw (well it going to pens) gets you £5k. Making the Round of 32 in the CC gets you £10k while the R32 in the Papa Johns is £20k.

Really the only benefit of the CC is if you get Man Utd in that it can mean a away game at Old Trafford which even against a League 2 team with a second-string being played usually see's over £50k turn up

 

Tennis has officially done it that way for at least 3 decades. The sizes of draw's are different per tournament so its more consistent to talk about Round fo 128, 64, 32, 16 than it is to talk about Round 1, Round 2, Round 3 etc. because its consistent no matter the draw size where Round's simply aren't. It's only when they get to the Quarters and on that it officially switches and that's because the minimum sized draw allowed is 16 so Quarters, Semis and Final are consistent and always exist

Unofficially people will generally use Round 1, Round 2 etc but the part you saw that on I'm guessing was probably Order of Play. Websites like the BBC don't manually enter these. If they had to do that for every sport they have calenders for it would be a time consuming full-time job (maybe even needing multiple people). What they actually do is they parse a data feed provided by the competitions into their database and then the page pulls that data (and the feed will be checked every so often and any changes updated to the database and anything new added to the database) so its not the BBC choosing to use the Round of 128, its the data being pulled from the official feed

 

But that's because Attacking Midfielder is a broad catchall term for a midfielder playing more advanced, a number 10 is someone who plays a specific type of attacking midfielder though. For whatever reason, football just hasn't ever developed a name for that specific type while other types of attacking mid have had their roles defined into a specific term over time, especially after we moved away from 1-11's. The bigger problem really is people get lazy and misuse it, for example when Donaldson played deeper for a few games last season I saw people calling him a number 10 but he wasn't really playing that way, he was playing much more like either a Shadow Striker or a False 10. And someone like Messi rarely plays as a Number 10 even though people label him as such, he plays more as a central winger. And someone like KDB plays a more hybrid role combining a traditional number 8 and a traditional number 10.

It's actually going to get worse as more and more teams aren't employing an actual Number 10 anyway. A number 10 has a very small window where they truly contribute, they generally stay high and narrow finding gaps between the lines but that means in some stages of player you are almost playing with 1 man less and their movement is a lot smaller and deliberate which might find them space but doesn't create space for others so you are relying on everything going through the number 10 and them being able to play perfect defence-splitting passes time and time again so teams do look for players who can do more, be it like Messi who can take up the Number 10 role in a match but as mentioned likes to play as a central winger who will constantly be looking for space wider to run into and then start his attacking movement from or the likes of KDB who start deeper than a Number 10 but has the energy and intelligence to take up that number 10 role when it's the right time.

 

Exactly that. The concern was often that the B Teams would suffocate the EFL teams but that hasn't happened, there hasn't been a B Team winner yet, the closest I believe was a couple of Quarter-Finals. A good number each season don't even get out of their groups which imho would be even higher if EFL clubs actually took it more seriously at the group stage, they don't really seem to until the knockouts.

The thing is as well imho it is a competition that can be really beneficial for both EFL clubs and the PL clubs if its taken seriously. One of the reasons for the B teams is because when the push was made to turn the reserves into an u23 league with the aim to help develop young players it ruined its usefulness. A good example is Paul Pogba, he has pretty much always been bigger and stronger than everyone else in his age group, in the United u18's he would basically bully everyone but when he stepped up that all changed. There were other 'first years' like him but there were also young players who had had a couple of seasons at this level and most importantly seasoned 1st teamers. And now he was the one being bulled by these year 2 and year 3 youngsters and the seasoned pro's. There were games where you had small players who looked like a good gust of wind would blow them over who would consistently out battle him because they were experienced pro's who knew how to use every bit of physicality they had and knew all the tricks whereas all Pogba knew was players who mentally had already checked out when they saw it was him. That's a big reason why despite calls from most United fans who were only seeing the highlight clips of him pinging balls across the field to play him in the 1st team Fergie didn't because he was showing he wasn't even up to reserve standard yet. It wasn't really under after Christmas that he started taking more and more hold of games which is when he also started getting named in the 1st team travelling squads and on the bench. It's actually one of the reasons I feel he struggles now in the League, he needed another year where he was juggling the reserves with some first-team minutes but he went to the less physical Italy and didn't need to develop that side of his game as much and now he is back he still way too often gets outmuscled by smaller players because in English Football players get in other players faces quicker and with more intent than they do abroad or in international football and he just never learned to fully use that physicality he has. The EFL trophy is now for young PL players the only chance they really have of developing the physical side of their game without a loan (and loans can be risky, unless they hit the ground right away which they might not because of the physical element they may actually not get played).

And for EFL clubs not only is the money really good but also your players get to play against a team of different types of players than the average team you come up against. And that's always good for players to be tested with other styles, especially if you have some younger players who if the clubs aim is to move through the divisions and you might want them to progress with the club is always going to be useful. And there is also the fact they say winning becomes a habit and any experience of winning something will always be good for the players, staff and club in general