The Championship play-off final is being overshadowed by the fact that Liverpool are in the Champions League final, but the importance of this game will see the return to Premier League by either Aston Villa or Fulham. If the team that gets promoted survives one season in England’s highest division, then they will receive an estimated £280 million with £170 million coming after winning the final and gaining promotion itself.
Fulham missed out on automatic promotion by just 2 points after a very successful season under Slavisa Jokanovic but come up against an Aston Villa team led by Steve Bruce, who has guided four other teams to promotion, this will be a record 5th.
Match facts and team news
This is Fulham’s first ever play-off final after only ever being eliminated in the semi-finals in 1988-89, 1997-98 and 2016-17. However, this is Aston Villa’s first ever play-off campaign after they were relegated from the Premier League in 2015-16, on the back of 28 years of top flight football. The Fulham squad is full of attacking talent with a very young team, highlighted by Ryan Sessegnon who is just 18 and has scored 16 goals from the left wing this season.
Whereas Aston Villa are a team full of experience and this is highlighted by the decision to sign former Chelsea captain, John Terry. The managers both typify the experience levels as previously mentioned, this could be the 5th time that Steve Bruce has been promoted, Whereas Slavisa Jokanovic guided Watford to a second-place automatic promotion 3 years ago.
