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The 2020–21 EFL Trophy, known as the Leasing.com Trophy before 28 October 2020 and later the
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Trophy for sponsorship reasons, was the 38th season in the history of the competition, a knock-out tournament for
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clubs in League One and
League Two The English Football League Two (often referred to as League Two for short or Sky Bet League Two for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League Two from 2004 until 2016) is the third and lowest division of the English Football Le ...
of the English football system, and also including 16 Premier League and Championship " Academy teams" with Category One status. Salford City were the defending champions; however, the 2020 final was delayed due to the
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until the day prior to the 2021 final. Hence, for most of the tournament,
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(who won the 2019 final and were also in the 2020 final) were the most recent champions.
Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...
won the trophy for the first time after beating Tranmere Rovers 1–0 in the
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.


Participating clubs

*48 clubs from League One and
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. *16 invited Category One Academy teams. *Expelled clubs were automatically eliminated from the tournament. *Category One teams relegated to League One missed out on having academies participate in the following tournament. Four Premier League clubs with Category One academies did not participate:
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and Crystal Palace, both in their first full season of Category One status, and Everton and
Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English football. The team has playe ...
, who both played in the previous year's competition but declined to participate in this one. A fifth Premier League club's academy,
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, did not have Category One status. As a result, the academy of Championship-side Norwich City was invited instead.


Eligibility criteria for players

;For EFL clubs *Minimum of four qualifying outfield players in their starting XI. A qualifying outfield player was one who met any of the following requirements: **Any player who started the previous or following first-team fixture. **Any player who was in the top 10 players at the club who had made the most starting appearances in league and domestic cup competitions that season. **Any player with forty or more first-team appearances in their career. **Any player on loan from a Premier League club or any EFL Category One Academy club. *A club could play any eligible goalkeeper in the competition.


Competition format

;Group stage * Sixteen groups of four teams were organised on a regionalised basis. * All groups included one invited club. * All clubs played each other once, either home or away (Academies played all group matches away from home). * Clubs were awarded three points for a win and one point for a draw. * In the event of a drawn game (after 90 minutes), a
penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...
was held with the winning team earning an additional point. * Clubs expelled from the EFL were knocked out of the tournament automatically. * The top two teams progressed to the knockout stage. ;Knockout stage * Round 2 and 3 of the competition were drawn on a regionalised basis. * In Round 2, the group winners were seeded and the group runners-up were unseeded in the draw. * In Round 2, teams who played in the same group as each other in the group stage were kept apart from each other.


Group stage


Northern Section


Group A


Group B


Group C


Group D


Group E


Group F


Group G


Group H


Southern Section


Group A


Group B


Group C


Group D


Group E


Group F


Group G


Group H


Round 2


Northern section


Southern section


Round 3


Northern section


Southern section


Quarter-finals


Semi-finals


Final


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2020-21 EFL Trophy EFL Trophy 2020–21 European domestic association football cups 2020–21 English Football League