Once more into the maelstrom. The EFL play-offs start their 40th edition with Millwall at Hull tonight and the only thing for certain is that nobody knows what is in store.
Twelve teams in pursuit of a prize to define their seasons and with the power to change the future.
Some will tell you it’s down to momentum. Charging through with a well-timed late run. Or a matter of faith in what has taken you this far. Maybe leadership or experience counts. Or personality. Some call it bottle.
Others swear by meticulous planning. And a bit of luck never goes amiss. But everyone agrees there’s nothing quite like it.
‘People always told me it was the best way to get promoted,’ former Sunderland, West Brom and England striker Kevin Phillips tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘After losing three finals at Wembley, I didn’t believe it.
‘I’d only experienced heartache but to be on the winning side at the final whistle on a gruelling season, knowing the impact of promotion, especially into the Premier League, I’ve got to admit it’s the best feeling ever. It’s unique.’
‘It’s the best feeling ever. It’s unique,’ says Kevin Phillips of winning a play-off final, a feat he achieved at the fourth attempt, with Crystal Palace in 2013
Sunderland supporters go wild after sealing promotion at Sheffield United’s expense at Wembley last year
Out of 105 teams to have been involved in the play-offs, Blackpool are the masters. They have won the most promotions (six), won the most ties (14) and scored the most goals (51).
Brett Ormerod, a scorer in two of their finals nine years apart, puts it down to mentality, especially in 2010 under Ian Holloway.
‘We were in form and relaxed,’ says Ormerod. ‘Focused on the job – and we trusted each other. It never felt like a sucker punch if we went behind. We knew we’d create chances, score goals. And we had a bit of flair with Charlie Adam and his fantastic left foot.’
Adam scored a brilliant free-kick in the final and Holloway claimed credit for a tactical provocation, warning his players about Cardiff’s Peter Whittingham because he had ‘the best left foot in the Championship’. Adam ran straight at Holloway when he scored.
‘I thought I was winding down when I went back to Blackpool,’ says Ormerod. ‘I was 33, but Ollie said he’d get me back in the Premier League. I thought he was mad as a box of frogs. We were one of the favourites to go down.
‘But we bought into his philosophy and had a good squad and a blend of characters. No egos. It turned out well. He took us all the way and I’m very grateful.’
‘We were in form and relaxed,’ recalls Blackpool’s 2010 hero Brett Ormerod. ‘Focused on the job – and we trusted each other. We knew we’d create chances, score goals’
‘I was 33, but Ollie (boss Ian Holloway) said he’d get me back in the Premier League. I thought he was mad as a box of frogs’
Blackpool’s six play-off wins came with six different managers but the man in charge can make a difference.
‘There’s no magic formula, but I think those who’ve managed on the big stage are better suited,’ says Richard Foster, journalist and author who wrote The Agony and the Ecstasy, the definitive guide to the EFL play-offs.
‘It’s such a big occasion at Wembley and sometimes teams freeze, and the manager isn’t always able to change that.’
Four of Neil Warnock’s eight promotions have been via the play-offs and the first two in successive years with Notts County.
In 1990, the first time the club had ever been to Wembley, they beat Tranmere and by way of preparation the manager gathered his players to watch a VHS of comedian Roy Chubby Brown.
‘Quite blue but funny,’ says Warnock on Sky’s new documentary Play-offs at 40. ‘I said, “I could’ve played you their set-pieces but they’ll be looking at ours and they’ll be terrified and you’ve been relaxing”.’
Then Notts County boss Neil Warnock with midfielder Phil Turner at Wembley in 1991, after beating Brighton in the old Second Division play-off final. A year earlier, he’d inspired his team with a VHS of a Roy Chubby Brown stand-up gig
Simon Grayson was in the play-offs four times in five years as a Leicester player. They lost the first two finals and won the next two.
‘By the third time, we were accustomed to the atmosphere and expectancy level,’ says Grayson, who has won three of his four promotions as a manager via the play-offs. ‘We learned to handle the occasion and not lose sight of the fact there was a football match to win.
‘Our manager Brian Little took us early to Wembley to get a feel of the place and I did the same when I went with Blackpool. We went to watch the League Two final the day before and tried to get some of the tension out of the way.
‘I did the same with Preston. We turned up in our suits and one of the guys from Sky Sports said it looked like we were there to work and Swindon were there for the day out.’
Doncaster boss Grant McCann won the play-offs three times as a player with three different teams at three different venues. Old Trafford with Peterborough, Cardiff with Cheltenham, and Wembley with Scunthorpe, who stunned Millwall in 2009 having learned from mistakes made when losing the EFL Trophy final to Luton on penalties.
‘We (Scunthorpe) went down a couple of days before for the first one and that hindered us,’ says McCann, who has stabilised Doncaster in League One after promotion last year. ‘We were in London too long, we visited the stadium, we were in a hotel with the pressure building.
‘We had extra motivation to go back and win the play-off final, and the gaffer Nigel Adkins did it slightly different. We went down the day before, didn’t go and look at the stadium. We were calm. We had seen it all before.
‘There are too many different factors to say it comes down to one thing, but it helps to be the calmest team on the day.’
Preston had been in the play-offs nine times and not gone up when Grayson took them back in 2015. ‘Our supporters were scarred,’ recalls Grayson. ‘All we kept hearing was about how we had the worst record.
‘We dropped out of the top two at Colchester on the last day and the players were devastated. I stopped the bus on the way to the airport to try and reinforce some positivity. I said, “If we’d dropped from sixth to seventh there’d be no second chance – but we’ve got a second chance”.’
Simon Grayson changed the pitch dimensions at Preston’s Deepdale to mirror Wembley – and his side beat Swindon 4-0, thanks to a hat-trick from Jermaine Beckford (left)
Before the final, Grayson trained at Deepdale, changing the pitch dimensions to mirror Wembley and prove it was not much bigger than the one they played on every week, despite perceptions. On the bus to the stadium, he showed a reel of highlights from the season. They were 4-0 up inside an hour with a hat-trick by Jermaine Beckford.
Some hoodoos remain unbroken. Sheffield United have not won in 10 attempts despite reaching five finals.
Milton Keynes Dons have not made it to the final in six attempts and will be relieved to have won automatic promotion as runners-up in League Two this year.
Darren Moore had two hours’ sleep after his Sheffield Wednesday team lost 4-0 in the first leg of the play-off semi final at Peterborough in 2023.
He scrapped plans to give the players the next day off and with black coffee to hand studied a recording of the game until 7am. Moore was at the training ground by 10am to plot the greatest comeback in the history of the play-offs.
‘I wanted to be the first into their heads,’ says Moore. ‘I didn’t want them to spend the next day on social media. They came in expecting the video nasty.’
Instead, he showed them all 65 goals they had scored at home in that season and reruns of epic sporting comebacks. He shared the tweaks he wanted to make to the tactical plan.
‘Quicker from back to front, man to man at the back and 25 crosses in each half,’ says Moore. ‘My job was to keep the belief. Lee Gregory stood up at the back of the room and said: “Gaffer, this isn’t a miracle, we can do this.” I said, “I believe you can do it, but no team has come back from three down never mind four, so it will be a miracle”.’
They practised penalties every day despite some quizzical looks and on the eve of the game trained at Hillsborough with hostile crowd noise blaring through the speakers.
Wednesday levelled the tie in the 98th minute to force extra time, came back from behind again and were faultless in a penalty shootout before beating Barnsley at Wembley, where Josh Windass scored the only goal to emulate the winner scored by his father Dean for Hull 15 years earlier.
Scripts like these cannot be written.
Sheffield Wednesday supporters storm the pitch and mob defender Aden Flint after their play-off miracle, overturning a 4-0 deficit from the first leg against Peterborough
Wednesday went on to win the final at Wembley, with Josh Windass (second from right) emulating his father Dean’s heroics while at Hull
‘It comes down to the players,’ says Phillips, whose winning goal secured the most recent of Crystal Palace’s four play-off promotions. ‘People like to say, “Play the game not the occasion”, but it’s not easy.
‘I’ve seen players freeze and when that happens it’s down to team-mates to help each other. Experience helps but sometimes young players don’t feel the pressure. They see the opportunity and play with freedom. You need all types.’
Phillips was almost 40 when he stood over the decisive Palace penalty in extra time at Wembley in 2013. He had lost finals with Sunderland, West Brom Albion and Blackpool.
‘No one else was taking it, that’s for sure,’ says Phillips. ‘I was at a stage in my career where I’d been there, seen it, done it. And it was in front of the Watford fans, the club where it all started for me.
‘I tried to put that to back of my mind. I certainly wasn’t thinking about how much it was worth. Just make a clean strike, go with what I had in my head.’
Phillips takes the penalty that sent Palace towards the top flight. ‘No one else was taking it, that’s for sure’
Shootout science has come a long way since Phillips played for Sunderland on the losing side of the epic final against Charlton in 1998.
Phillips scored his 35th goal of the season in a 4-4 draw before he was taken off, feeling the effects of a dead leg from the semis. Michael Gray, who admits he never wanted to take it, had his penalty saved by Sasa Ilic who was flipping a 10p coin he found to decide which way to dive.
When Luton made it to Wembley, boss Rob Edwards drew from research into penalties by the FA’s analyst Chris Markham.
Details included where to huddle after extra time to ensure messages remain clear and confusion is minimised, and the keeper handing the ball to the next taker and takers picking their spot and sticking to it.
Psychological pressure is heightened by the value of a place in the Premier League and the subsequent financial bonuses.
The play-offs were introduced in the 1986-87 season as part of a plan to reduce the number of teams in the top flight when promotion was worth £500,000.
Now, it is worth about £200million. That prize, plus the eyes of the world in a sport of extreme uncertainty, invites performance anxiety.
‘As human beings, we all play out stories in our minds,’ says Dan Abrahams, sport psychologist and author of Compete. ‘How will things go if we succeed or fail? What if I’m the player to make mistake?’
Luton’s players revel in their penalty shootout triumph over Coventry in 2023
Then Hatters boss Rob Edwards (pictured) drew from FA research into spot-kicks by analyst Chris Markham to give his team the best chance of victory
Soaring anxiety levels inhibit awareness, anticipation, technical coordination and tactical acuity.
‘Sometimes it’s milliseconds or millimetres,’ said Abrahams, whose key piece of advice for any players going into the players is to be active. ‘With performance anxiety, players tend to freeze. Classic fight, flight or freeze. Your actions and decision-making slows down.
‘I talk to players all the time about squashing their ANTs (automatic negative thoughts) and the best way is to take action even when you’re standing still, be it searching, scanning, gestures, helping others.
‘Strive to be busy, even if it’s a little bit performative, because that is the antithesis of what it is to freeze under pressure.’
