The 2007–08 Irish League Cup (known as the CIS Insurance Cup for sponsorship reasons) was the 22nd edition of the

Irish League Cup The Northern Ireland Football League Cup (known as the BetMcLean Cup for sponsorship purposes, and commonly known as the Irish League Cup) is a national football knock-out cup competition in Northern Ireland open to all member clubs of the ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

's secondary

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

knock-out cup competition. It concluded on 2 February 2008 with the final.

Glentoran Glentoran Football Club is a professional football club based in East Belfast, Northern Ireland, that plays in the NIFL Premiership. The club was founded in 1882 and has since won more than 130 major honours. They are one of three Northern Iris ...

were the defending champions after their sixth League Cup win last season; a 1–0 victory over

Cliftonville Cliftonville is a coastal area of Margate in the Thanet District, Thanet district of Kent, England. It includes the Palm Bay, UK, Palm Bay estate, built in the 1930s with wide avenues and detached and semi-detached houses with driveways, gar ...

in the previous final. This season Glentoran went out at the semi-final stage to

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

, who were then defeated 3–2 by Linfield in the final. This was a record ninth League Cup win for Linfield, and would be their last one for 11 years until they won the 2019 final. This was also the tenth time in eleven years that the cup had been won by one of Belfast's Big Two. The 16 clubs taking part were divided into four groups of four clubs. The clubs in each group played each other at home and away. The top two clubs from each group then advanced to the quarter-finals where they played a single knock-out tie against another quarter-finalist. The semi-finals were played in the same format with the two winners of the ties advancing to the single match final.

Group stage

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

References