The Carabao Cup second-round draw takes place on Monday, 10 August at around 19:20 BST, with 11 Premier League clubs entering the competition for the first time this season (BBC Sport).

Brentford, Chelsea, Fulham, Newcastle United, Everton, Leeds United, Nottingham Forest, Tottenham Hotspur, Coventry City, Ipswich Town and Hull City are the top-flight sides joining 35 first-round winners from the English Football League — the three professional divisions below the Premier League — in the hat (BBC Sport).

The draw will be shown live on Sky Sports, broadcast during the build-up to the final first-round tie: a Devon derby between League One's Plymouth Argyle and League Two's Exeter City (EFL). Former players Jobi McAnuff and Jamie Mackie will conduct the draw on Sky Sports Football and Sky Sports Main Event (EFL; Yahoo Sports).

For casual fans: the Carabao Cup, also known as the EFL Cup, is English football's main knockout cup competition outside the FA Cup. It features all 92 professional clubs from the Premier League and the three EFL divisions. Premier League sides enter in round two, while clubs competing in the Champions League or Europa League — European football's elite club tournaments — join in round three (EFL).

The first two rounds are regionalised, meaning clubs are split into northern and southern sections to cut down on travel for lower-league sides (BBC Sport). The second-round ties themselves will be played in the week commencing Monday, 24 August (BBC Sport).

The competition has already produced its share of early storylines. The 2026-27 edition began with a preliminary round featuring four clubs — Tranmere Rovers, Crawley Town, York City and Rochdale (EFL) — before 70 teams entered round one (EFL). First-round fixtures included Tranmere hosting Rochdale on 1 August and Crawley travelling to York on 3 August (EFL).

Among the ties already scheduled for this season's competition are Bristol City vs Walsall, Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Port Vale, Wycombe Wanderers vs Stevenage, Middlesbrough vs Wrexham, and Cambridge United vs Barnet (EFL).

The EFL, which runs the Carabao Cup alongside the league pyramid and other competitions, was formed in 1888 and is the oldest league football competition in the world (EFL). It remains the largest single body of professional clubs in European football.

For fans, the second round is where the competition starts to bite. A lower-league side drawn at home to a Premier League outfit gets a fixture that can fill their ground and, with a bit of luck, produce a result people talk about for years. That is the appeal of this tournament: 90 minutes, no seeding, and the chance that a club from the lower reaches of English football takes a Premier League scalp under the lights.