2009 Football League Cup final
The 2009 Football League Cup Final was the final match of the 2008–09 Football League Cup, the 49th season of the Football League Cup, a football competition for the 92 teams in the Premier League and The Football League. The match was played at Wembley Stadium on 1 March 2009, and was contested by Tottenham Hotspur, who won the competition in 2008, and Manchester United, who last won the competition in 2006. The two joint-top goalscorers played for each of the finalists. Roman Pavlyuchenko of Tottenham Hotspur, who scored in every match in which he played in the tournament up to the final, and Manchester United's Carlos Tevez; both players had six goals each.
| Event | 2008–09 Football League Cup | ||||||
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| After extra time Manchester United won 4–1 on penalties | |||||||
| Date | 1 March 2009 | ||||||
| Venue | Wembley Stadium, London | ||||||
| Man of the Match | Ben Foster (Manchester United) | ||||||
| Referee | Chris Foy (Merseyside) | ||||||
| Attendance | 88,217 | ||||||
| Weather | Mostly cloudy 11 °C (52 °F) | ||||||
Manchester United won 4–1 on penalties, after the match ended as a goalless draw in normal time. United converted all four of their penalties, while Tottenham missed two of their three. It was only the second time that the League Cup Final had been decided by a penalty shootout.
The man of the match was Manchester United goalkeeper Ben Foster, who became the first goalkeeper since Jerzy Dudek in 2003 to win the Alan Hardaker Award.
Retrospectively, the result of this game would have significant implications for the following season's UEFA Europa League. In winning the tournament, the qualifying spot for the League Cup went to the seventh-placed team in the Premier League by default, as Manchester United would later win the League and therefore qualified for the UEFA Champions League. Fulham, who finished seventh in the league, went on to progress to the final of the 2009–10 Europa League. Had Tottenham won the League Cup, they would have qualified in Fulham's place.