Southampton Football Club is an English professional football club based in Southampton, Hampshire, that competes in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. Its home ground since 2001 has been St Mary's Stadium, before which it was based at The Dell. The team play in red and white shirts. They have been nicknamed "The Saints" because of the club's beginnings as a church football team at St Mary's Church. Southampton shares a long-standing South Coast derby rivalry with Portsmouth, in part due to geographic proximity and both cities' respective maritime histories.

The EFL Cup, currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition in men's domestic football in England. Organised by the English Football League (EFL), it is open to any club within the top four levels of the English football league system—92 clubs in total—comprising the top-level Premier League, and the three divisions of the English Football League's own league competition.