Leeds U23s are on a cup run to [venue tbc]

Leeds United’s Under-23s qualified for the knockout stages of the Premier League Cup with a 1-1 draw against Mansfield on Monday. Don’t worry if none of that last sentence makes sense — what is the Premier League Cup? Why are Mansfield in it? What do you mean Leeds have qualified? — all that matters is Leeds United are officially on a cup run. A cup run!

This fixture was postponed so many times the knockout stage already began last week, while Leeds were still waiting to play their final group match. When it was finally time to play, Leeds and Mansfield were out and ready to kick off ahead of the scheduled 1pm start. They were either eager to duke it out over the final qualification spot behind group winners Wigan (Mansfield needed to win, Leeds only draw), or desperate to get it over with.

If it was the latter, ​​me too, by the end of watching the first half. The game was played at RH Academy, ‘a very good place where you can bring young children to play football’, according to its official Facebook page. It looked like a bobbly pitch in the middle of a field exposed to the wind. Leeds were pretty chronic, but gave players on the verge of the first team a rest, calling up a pair of Joes from the Under-18s, Littlewood and Snowdon. Mansfield embarrassed themselves by fielding a number of grown-ups, including 32-year-old goalkeeper Marek Stech, once of West Ham; former Newcastle and QPR defender James Perch, a 36-year-old with almost 600 senior appearances; and the curious case of 29-year-old Danny Johnson, whose USP is counting Billingham Synthonia and Real Murcia among his list of past clubs, and scored twenty goals for Leyton Orient in League Two last season.

Stuart McKinstry greeted Johnson before the game kicked off; the winger was emerging at Motherwell while the striker spent a season there. Johnson was much less friendly to the rest of the Leeds team. He left one in on Littlewood after an innocuous back pass, and was punching the ground after wasting a good chance to score. He tried to style out missing an even easier chance by laughing to himself just before half-time, but by then he had already put Mansfield ahead following some weak Leeds defending through the middle of midfield and defence.

Jesse Marsch isn’t the only new dad at Thorp Arch, with loan manager Andrew Taylor taking over as U23s boss following Mark Jackson’s promotion to the first team. The former Middlesbrough and Bolton left-back got improvement out of his players after half-time, particularly when Mateo Joseph (remember him!) came off the bench. Leeds set about finding ever more spectacular ways to miss chances, like the best of the first team — Charlie Allen could have scored a hat-trick, hitting the bar with the best of his efforts, a dipping half volley after a corner bounced to him at the edge of the box. They finally equalised when Littlewood helped fellow centre-back Kris Moore’s scuffed shot on its way into the net.

Everyone agrees the FA Cup isn’t cool anymore, so instead we can start dreaming of glory in the Premier League Cup. No marks like Derby County and Peterborough have already qualified for the quarter-finals, with Huddersfield Town potentially joining them on Thursday, when they face Stoke. None of those clubs are in the Premier League, so it would seem fairest to just give Leeds a bye on the road to the prestigious final at — *quickly Googles* — er, the stadium of one of the teams in the final.

I’d be booking my tickets already, were it not for the fact Leeds have already been drawn away at West Ham in the round of sixteen. West Ham’s bigger boys bullied Leeds’ kids the last time they met in January, and the elders have already been knocked out of the FA Cup in east London this season, so Leeds’ best cup run of the campaign probably ends here. Maybe it’ll hurt our kids less to go out now, than end a big day out with a trophy at stake feeling deflated in Peterborough? ⬢