EFL have announced ball numbers for Northern and Southern Sections of the first-round draw in 2025-26 Carabao Cup.
This round will see all 72 EFL clubs enter the competition but due to nine Premier League clubs having qualified for Europe, Accrington Stanley and Newport County as the two lowest ranked EFL clubs of last season will play a preliminary round across 5-6 August against newly promoted Oldham and Barnet respectively.
EFL have pre-determined that Accrington will face Oldham in the Northern Section with the pair sharing ball number 38 in the northern section’s first-round draw, whilst Newport will meet Barnet in the Southern Section with the pair sharing ball number 32 in the southern section’s first-round draw.
In the Northern Section, there will be 19 ties whilst the Southern Section will only contain 16 ties.
The draw will take place live on Sky Sports News in the UK at 4:20pm BST today (26 June), with a preliminary draw taking place prior to the first round draw to determine who will be at home in both preliminary ties.
Northern Section
| Ball Number | Team |
| 1 | Barnsley |
| 2 | Barrow |
| 3 | Birmingham City |
| 4 | Blackburn |
| 5 | Blackpool |
| 6 | Bolton |
| 7 | Bradford |
| 8 | Burton Albion |
| 9 | Chesterfield |
| 10 | Crewe Alexandra |
| 11 | Derby |
| 12 | Doncaster |
| 13 | Fleetwood Town |
| 14 | Grimsby |
| 15 | Harrogate |
| 16 | Huddersfield |
| 17 | Hull City |
| 18 | Leicester City |
| 19 | Lincoln City |
| 20 | Mansfield Town |
| 21 | Middlesbrough |
| 22 | Notts County |
| 23 | Peterborough United |
| 24 | Port Vale |
| 25 | Preston |
| 26 | Rotherham |
| 27 | Salford |
| 28 | Sheffield United |
| 29 | Sheffield Wednesday |
| 30 | Shrewsbury Town |
| 31 | Stockport County |
| 32 | Stoke City |
| 33 | Tranmere |
| 34 | Walsall |
| 35 | West Brom |
| 36 | Wigan |
| 37 | Wrexham |
| 38 | Accrington Stanley/Oldham |
Southern Section
| Ball Number | Team |
| 1 | AFC Wimbledon |
| 2 | Bristol City |
| 3 | Bristol Rovers |
| 4 | Bromley |
| 5 | Cambridge United |
| 6 | Cardiff City |
| 7 | Charlton Athletic |
| 8 | Cheltenham Town |
| 9 | Colchester United |
| 10 | Coventry City |
| 11 | Crawley Town |
| 12 | Exeter City |
| 13 | Gillingham |
| 14 | Ipswich Town |
| 15 | Leyton Orient |
| 16 | Luton Town |
| 17 | Millwall |
| 18 | MK Dons |
| 19 | Northampton Town |
| 20 | Norwich City |
| 21 | Oxford United |
| 22 | Plymouth Argyle |
| 23 | Portsmouth |
| 24 | QPR |
| 25 | Reading |
| 26 | Southampton |
| 27 | Stevenage |
| 28 | Swansea City |
| 29 | Swindon Town |
| 30 | Watford |
| 31 | Wycombe Wanderers |
| 32 | Barnet/Newport County |
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