Pep Guardiola knows – the EFL play-offs are brilliant, to miss them is to miss out

Pep Guardiola had been asked on Friday if English football had changed him or if he was the one to have changed English football when he chose to steer the discussion to what he had watched the night before.

“I saw Sheffield (Wednesday) against Peterborough (United), 4-0, extra time and penalties to be in a play-off to go to the Championship,” said the Manchester City manager, the day before his side had been crowned Premier League champions for a third consecutive year.

“Can I see that in Spain, can I see that in Germany, can I see that in Italy? It’s impossible. The crowd, live on Sky, no other countries do that. They respect a lot the top clubs, more followed than other ones, but here the respect for lower-division (football) is hats off. This is England. That’s why it’s unique.”

Guardiola, whose Manchester City empire has been built with the vast resources of the club’s Abu Dhabi ownership group, is an unlikely cheerleader for what lies beneath the Premier League, but on weeks like these, the EFL becomes impossible to ignore.

The end-of-season play-offs are a cast-iron guarantee of drama, intrigue, hope and despair. They bring nights that are not supposed to happen, like Sheffield Wednesday’s remarkable fightback at Hillsborough that had Guardiola purring, and days to join folklore. Every May brings games that command the attention, inviting neutrals along for the ride. Missing them is missing out.

The last 10 days underline that the play-offs are the best part of an EFL season. Arguably even the entire English football campaign. All six semi-finals, in the Championship, League One and League Two, were settled by the odd goal over 180 minutes of two legs, in extra time or in a penalty shootout. To that last whistle, there was anxiety.

The Championship’s two semis shredded nerves as Luton Town overcame Sunderland the night before Coventry City squeezed past Middlesbrough with a 1-0 aggregate win. Two clubs that have fought back from the brink will now meet at Wembley for a place in the Premier League on Saturday. A final for the romantics, as Coventry manager Mark Robins put it.

Guardiola picked the best tie of all to watch once Sheffield Wednesday somehow fought back from a 4-0 first-leg deficit with their own 4-0 win on home soil thanks to Liam Palmer’s 98th-minute equaliser. Then came the back and forth of extra time, with Peterborough retaking the lead and then Wednesday responding in front of a sell-out crowd drunk on disbelief. Penalties, perhaps inevitably, then went the way of Darren Moore’s side. Even by play-off standards, it was beautifully chaotic.

They will meet Barnsley, who held off the threat of Bolton Wanderers on Friday night, before League Two then delivered another injection of drama on Saturday afternoon.

Stockport County and Salford City, two Manchester rivals, exchanged extra-time goals before Stockport held their nerve best at Edgeley Park to win on penalties. Carlisle United overturned their own first-leg deficit to beat Bradford City, too, with three goals scored in extra time. Ben Barclay’s eventual winner in the 112th minute had the Warwick Road End of Brunton Park, with more than 15,500 packed in the ground, losing minds and all control.

The tension in both games ate away at those involved until fates were decided. One side was hoisted high by their supporters in pitch invasions when all was said and done, the other left crumpled in a heap. The juxtaposition of emotions is rarely more pronounced. A season’s work is either endorsed or ruined.

The EFL has its problems, like its common financial mismanagement and unsuitable owners, but the play-offs have become its greatest asset since first being introduced for the 1986-87 season.

A promotion spot in each of the three divisions is reserved solely for the winner of a four-team shootout. Those that have managed it say there is no better way to triumph than in a Wembley final and they are also a means of keeping seasons alive. Even those in mid-table can typically cling to promotion ambitions by Easter, especially in a division as traditionally congested as the Championship.

The interest they command is enormous. The 12 play-off games to date this month, played across the three divisions, attracted an aggregate crowd of over 250,000, with the majority of ties sold out. The three finals at Wembley, played over the late May Bank Holiday weekend, will likely be watched by a figure somewhere close to 200,000. The Championship play-off final alone is assured of filling Wembley’s 90,000 seats.

But to write a love letter to the EFL play-offs and ignore what happened in the National League would be unjust. That set the tone, with end-of-season epics played between Notts County and Boreham Wood and then Chesterfield and Bromley. Both had extra-time winners to book places at Wembley, where Notts County then proceeded to battle back from a goal behind, twice, to edge out Chesterfield in a penalty shootout. There was just shy of 40,000 there to see it, too. The National League has become League Three in all but name.

The EFL finals to come this weekend may not produce the storylines that have carried the season this far. Too much is at stake in a one-off game that urges caution. We can forgive them of that. The teams involved have already given us enough.

(Top photos: Getty Images)