Manchester City began their Carabao Cup defence by naming every single registered player in the club's academy, under-18 and under-16 squads for the Norwich City tie, then sending all of them onto the pitch simultaneously in a rotating human wall that stretched from the goal line to the halfway circle.
Norwich City, informed of the arrangement ninety minutes before kick-off, were required by competition rules to field eleven men who had never previously met, assembled from a car park in Norfolk and given numbered bibs by a steward named Kevin. «We were told the opposition would be fluid,» said Norwich manager Johannes Hoff Thorup. «We did not realise fluid meant a continuous stream of children running at our left-back for two hours.»
The match officials, unable to count the City side, abandoned the usual formation and instead timed substitutions by stopwatch, replacing one academy player with another every eleven seconds. The fourth official, a man named Derek, was issued a second stopwatch and a folding chair. By the second half the City bench had been extended into the car park, where a further sixty players warmed up in a conga line that blocked the entrance to the Etihad's west stand.
Norwich's defenders, who had trained all week for Erling Haaland, instead spent the evening marking a rotating cast of fifteen-year-olds who introduced themselves by first name before dribbling past. «I shook hands with nine of them,» said Norwich captain Grant Hanley. «None of them knew each other either.»
The Football League confirmed it would review the arrangement, then confirmed it would not, then confirmed it would review the review. City's next opponents have reportedly asked to be told, in advance, how many people they are expected to defend against.