Drama, heartache and loadsamoney – why the Play-Offs might be the best thing in football | OneFootball

Few things in football can compare to the EFL Play-Offs, with its high stakes, melodrama and unpredictability making it one of the most enjoyable spectacles in the sport.

In the run-up to Sunday’s Championship Play-Off final between Sheffield United and Sunderland, there has been the usual focus on how much victory would be worth to either side. Reaching the Premier League can be extremely lucrative, which is why owners of second tier clubs risk blowing a shed load of their cash on getting there.

The winner can expect to earn £220 million in additional income through television and prize money alone. That’s how much a place in the top division is worth.

It is a transformative figure for a football club, especially when compared to the relatively paltry amounts of money on offer in the league below. As Nick Harris pointed out ahead of the 2019 final between Aston Villa and Derby County, West Ham United’s win over Blackpool in 2012 exemplifies this better than just about any other playoff final in recent memory.

The triumphant Hammers have remained in the top flight ever since, raking in the riches, moving to a massive new stadium in London and even winning a European trophy, while the defeated Tangerines have struggled greatly. The Lancashire outfit dropped all the way down to the fourth tier in 2017 behind a backdrop of disastrous financial mismanagement by the Oyston family. Blackpool are back in League One after a brief return to the Championship, but 13 years on they are a million miles away from what West Ham are now.

The money is a massive element of the playoffs and shouldn’t be underestimated in its importance to the clubs involved. But for this writer, it is actually the most boring aspect of it from the viewpoint of a football enthusiast. Does anyone aside from accountants and spreadsheet perverts genuinely care about how much it is worth? While it is a narrative the media and television companies are intent on peddling, it is not one that sets the fire burning within, even if you have a stake in the game itself.

Why the EFL Play-Offs might be the best thing in football

Indeed, this particular fixture is not about accruing wealth. It is about glory. Teams at this level generally don’t get a whole lot of it. My beloved Fulham won it in 2018 and 2020, and although the following campaigns in the top flight were both complete dumpster fires, those memories will linger forever. Even more so when one considers that the Cottagers had never won in the play-offs, had never won a cup final (their one and only came in 1975), and had never even won a game at Wembley.

The team they defeated that fateful day was Aston Villa, who got to experience their own moment of jubilation five years ago. Even though the financial element of promotion was a major concern for both clubs going into the game, it was barely on the minds of the fans on the day. Jack Grealish, a local lad who lived and breathed the club before joining Manchester City, took to the pitch in his lucky, worn-out boots. He was and continues to be a source of pride for the supporters, who got to celebrate winning promotion and a trophy.

The play-offs are not the most high profile competition nor the most glamorous and it won’t necessarily feature the best quality football you’ll ever see. But it is one of the best tournaments in the entire sport, even if it only comprises five games in total annually. These knockout matches can be career-defining, in both great and gutting ways.

In 1996 Steve Claridge scored the winning goal for Leicester City against Crystal Palace, sending them to the Premier League. Speaking on BBC Five Live’s Football Daily podcast, he offered a fascinating insight into why winning the play-offs is so special.

“There’s a huge amount of relief along with the jubilation and elation of the day,” the former forward said. “The next year I got one in a cup final, right? (Leicester beat Middlesbrough to win the League Cup) And honestly, if you’d say to me you’re winning a major cup final, mate — it was absolutely nothing on the play-off.

“The play-off was so much more rewarding. The actual approach to the cup final was different to the play-off. We lose the cup final and we lose that one-off game. You lose that play-off game, you’ve lost the season. It’s completely different.”

Lower down the food chain, the jubilation of which Claridge speaks can be multiplied several times over. How often do these teams get to go to Wembley, if ever? Tranmere Rovers, who lost three consecutive First Division play-off semi-finals in the nineties, won promotion to League One in 2019 in the most dramatic way possible — netting a winner in the 119th minute. This was especially poignant for a club who had dropped out of the Football League entirely in 2015.

One level above them, there was another round of heartache and joy in equal measure. In a battle of former Premier League outfits, Sunderland drew first blood thanks to an astoundingly bad mistake from Charlton Athletic’s goalkeeper in the opening five minutes.

The Addicks rebounded, getting an equaliser in the first-half before nabbing a 94th-minute winner. It was absolutely heartbreaking for the Black Cats, but the explosion of noise and pure bliss from the Charlton fans, who had put up with the god-awful ownership of Roland Duchatelet, was heartwarming.

League One continued to be a source of heartening and inspirational moments that season as Wycombe Wanderers, a non-league club when the Premier League was created, gained promotion to the second tier for the first time ever. The moment was all the poorer for the lack of fans in the cavernous stadium, but it was immediately made up for by the sheer delight and delirium of Adebayo Akinfenwa’s post-match interview.

At the same time, the play-offs can be unspeakably cruel as well. Leeds United, who had been in the conversation for automatic promotion for so much of the 2023/24 campaign having played some excellent football, finished in third place, condemning them to the mini tournament of death. They were unable to avoid the same fate that befell them when Frank Lampard’s Derby County™ ensured Marcelo Bielsa and his boys to another year in the second tier. Fortunately for them, they won the Championship the following season.

The argument that the third best team in the league deserves promotion over any of the sides three places below them is a fair one. When Derby went up through the play-offs after finishing sixth in 2007, they subsequently went on to be the worst ever team in the Premier League, winning a solitary game before going straight back down. In 2017 Huddersfield Town rose to the top tier with a negative goal difference. As mentioned, third-placed Leeds were arguably the league’s best team in 2019 but had to watch on as fifth-placed Villa cashed that juicy nine-figure cheque.

Again, though, this is all part of the brilliance of the play-offs. Its knockout nature means anyone can win it, giving it a zeal of excitement, unpredictability and tension you simply don’t get in competitions, other than the Champions League and the World Cup. Allowing the sixth best team to qualify also gives a whole host of teams something to play for, a vital requirement for a 24-team league.

Another format might allow for staid meritocracy, but we wouldn’t trade anything for the drama, buzz and delirium of the play-offs. Not a chance.

Read – Five of the greatest Championship play-off moments

See Also – The best goals of the 2024/25 Premier League season

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