ONE match, winner takes all. The prize? A spot in the Premier League.. oh, and £170million.
The Championship play-off final is often dubbed “the richest game in football” – with good reason.
Nottingham Forest are fighting to break back into the Premier League for the first time since the late 90s Credit: Rex
For both Huddersfield and Nottingham Forest there’s a staggering £170m up for grabs – and a spot in the Premier League – in Sunday’s Championship play-off final Credit: Getty Where else can you bag close to £200m just for one match?
Even the winner of the Champions League final only pockets around £100m this season.
But we’re not dealing with the world’s richest clubs backed by billionaire owners who splash out on a football team as a side hustle here.
Huddersfield and Nottingham Forest have both tasted promotion to the Premier League.. they’ve also suffered relegation.
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Play the Sun Vegas wheel for FREE every day between midday and midnight They’ve both needed parachute payments to help stay afloat after the otherwise crippling drop to the second tier of English football.
Fulham and Bournemouth have already booked their place back at the top table for 2022-23.
And, so rarely the case, the third and fourth-placed teams in this season’s Championship will fight it out to join them in the Premier League.
Huddersfield had the edge over 46 league games – by just two points.
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But Forest scored more AND conceded fewer goals across the whole season.
Huddersfield scraped past Luton 2-1 on aggregate in the play-offs semi-final, while Nottingham Forest needed penalties to finally overcome Sheffield United.
The Terriers played in the Premier League as recently as the 2019-20 season and have featured in SIX play-off finals – most recently in the 2016-17 season when they snuck past Reading on penalties to reach the top-flight for the first time in their history.
But for Forest, this will feel like unchartered territory.
The Midlands giants – who won the European Cup as recently as 1980 – have NEVER played in a play-off final.
They haven’t been in the Premier League this millennium, either – last enduring a horror, one-season spell in the top-flight in 1998-99.
Forest have even sunk has low as League One – playing in the third tier between 2005 and 2008.
Since then, they’ve been languishing in the Championship for 14 years.
Incredibly, Nottingham Forest haven’t played at Wembley since their 1992 League Cup final defeat at the hands of Manchester United.
Forest have NEVER played at the new Wembley.
But while Huddersfield have racked up the points in the Championship, Forest enjoyed a better domestic cup season.
In fact, Nottingham Forest KO’d the Terriers in the fifth round of their impressive FA Cup run, in which they beat Arsenal AND Leicester, before losing to eventual champions Liverpool in the quarter-finals.
But how will they cope with the pressure?
With at least £170m up for grabs, as well as that all-important Premier League place, it really is anyone’s game.
Neither team will underestimate the importance of the match – not just for the squad or the manager’s sake, but for the that of the future of the club as a whole.
But who will come out on top?
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I’m an interior expert, the costly mistake people make decorating their home Will it be the team with more recent experience, Huddersfield, or the young, hungry, new-look Forest who turned so many heads in the FA Cup?
We’ll find out on Sunday afternoon at Wembley…
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
