Sheffield Utd – Sunderland

The first half of the final playoff game will not go scoreless

The final game of the Championship play-offs will traditionally take place at Wembley Stadium in London. The winners of the two semi-finals will meet, and the winner will be rewarded with promotion. The distance from Sheffield to London is about 270 kilometres from Sunderland it is more than one and a half times that distance. With about the same difference analysts offer the chances of victory in the final of its participants in favour of the nominal hosts. At the end of the regular season, the "blades" took third place, long fighting for direct promotion with Leeds United and Burnley. Sunderland finished following their upcoming opponent in fourth position, but the "Black Cats" were in a unique tournament situation for almost half of the season. The team for at least half a dozen rounds was located in fourth position with a huge gap from the top three and with a significant advantage over the five or six clubs that swapped with each other in the fight for the two outermost positions in the playoffs. Bookmakers have identified the nominal home team as favourites for the upcoming encounter, offering odds of 2.34 on their victory. Sheffield United at the very end of the regular season fell into a game slump. This allowed Burnley to push the Blades out of the top two and into the Premier League. Due to the crisis in Sheffield United's camp, bookmakers did not consider the team's chances to be much better than those of other play-off participants. However, the semi-final stage against Bristol City was played by the "Blades" so that there is no longer any doubt about their current abilities. "Zaryanka" were defeated both home and away with an identical 3-0 scoreline. Sunderland so long ago decided on the final position in the standings, that in the last rounds of the Championship simply quit playing. The last five rounds of the calendar for the "black cats" ended in defeats, four of which they suffered without scoring. Due to these results, Sunderland have been promoted to underdog status for their play-off semi-final with ambitious Coventry City. The teams exchanged away wins, but the Black Cats managed to score the decisive goal on 120+2 minutes of the return leg. The opponents are equally unstable, which makes it more likely that one of the teams will be more convincing and score an early goal.