Question: Does the Carling Cup matter? Answer: The answer does not matter.

The Carling Cup is terrible. Everyone knows this.

But why so?

You might say the stakes are too low–a Europa League place for the winner/runner-up? Bah.

You might say the TV money isn’t as good–who are you, a football/media executive? Piss off then, butthole.

You might say British football already has a domestic cup competition, the oldest in the world–the FA Cup. The League Cup is redundant and pales in comparison to the FA Cup’s rich history. You’re pretty much right about that.

You might say the low stakes, low profitability, redundancy and shallow history all lead top sides to not take the competition seriously. They field patchwork teams of reserves, youth players, and first team benchwarmers in need of playing time. The games with lower tier teams are mere formalities, the whipping boys dutifully taking their beating from the elites and remembering to say thank you on the way out. The clashes of the titans meanwhile seem anything but, usually close but nonetheless oppressively dull games decided by a scrappy late/early goal. You might say this, and you’d be correct.

Except that these reasons aren’t why the Carling Cup sucks.

The Carling Cup sucks because Carling beer sucks.

I don’t mean the beer itself, necessarily. I’ve never tasted it and I don’t intend to. In the American continents we have our own brands of fermented, watery pee.

More specifically I mean their commercials. They’re awful. Check it:

FOR PETE’S SAKE PUT YOUR SHIRTS BACK ON YOU DISGUSTING UGGOS! That song is cack as well.

Meanwhile, look at what beer advertisers treat us to far across the ocean:

Ya se armo! Now there’s a commercial whose product I can drink with dignity, from a keg in a trashcan at basement parties thrown by strangers.