Carlisle United manager Keith Curle says his side can hardly wait for their Capital One Cup Round 3 fixture with Liverpool on Wednesday.
The Cumbrians travel to Anfield having knocked out Sky Bet Championship side Queens Park Rangers in Round 2, and they currently sit 65 places below tonight's Premier League opposition.And Curle admits selecting a squad for a potential once-in-a-lifetime game for his players is tough, but he wants to leave Merseyside having taken the game to Liverpool.
“As soon as we got the draw we told everyone to embrace it,” the manager told carlisleunited.co.uk.
“I have 24 professionals who are desperate to get in the 18. Out of the 18 they will all be desperate to get in the starting 11. As you can imagine, training has been very competitive and everyone has been very focused on what they have been asked to do.
“We’re going to Anfield as a football department. The youth coaching staff will be on the bus with us to enjoy the atmosphere and the build up. I think it’s important that we all sample it because the reason for all of us coming into work every day is to get occasions like this.
“It’s good to play against the top teams, in their environment, and we can see how we deal with it both on and off the field. There will be a lot of nerves for our players and they will know that the media of the world will be watching. There’ll also be 40,000 or so people there and, let me tell you this, when the Kop cheers it can make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
“It’s great that the fans will be part of it as well. I know we will hear the Carlisle United supporters singing and hopefully we’ll give them something to sing about. You don’t need me to tell you how good Liverpool are but we’ll approach it in the same way we always do. We’re going there to try to earn the right to play our brand of football.”
You can follow our coverage of Liverpool versus Carlisle United, and all the other Round 3 fixtures on social media, on Twitter via @CapitalOne_Cup and on Facebook via Facebook.com/LeagueCup.