This was the first League Cup final in many years to be played in March, as previous finals had taken place in November; this format continued until the 2016–17 season (coincidentally the same teams would also contest that final).
The match was something of a Scandinavian affair, with Aberdeen's Danish manager Ebbe Skovdahl selecting three Norwegian players (one of whom, Thomas Solberg, was dismissed); Celtic fielded another Norwegian (Riseth, who opened the scoring) plus a Swede and a Dane. The Glasgow club's famous Swedish striker of the time, Henrik Larsson, was absent recovering from a broken leg.
