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Sunderland, a traditional English name, has only one step away from being promoted to the English Premier League (EPL).
Sunderland drew 1-1 with Daniel Ballard's theater equalizer in the second minute of extra time in the second half of the 2024-2025 Championship (second division) playoff semi-final against Coventry City at Stadium of Light in Sunderland, England on the 14th (Korea time).
Sunderland, who won 2-1 away at Coventry on the 10th, won the playoff final with a combined score of 3-2. The 'Chelsea Legend' Coventry, led by coach Frank Lampard, reached the playoffs after a great rebound, but unfortunately suffered.
Sunderland has not returned for eight years since being relegated to 20th place in the EPL in the 2016-2017 season. Sunderland, which fell to League One (division 3) in 24th place in the 2017-2018 season championship, returned to the championship after four seasons in the 2022-2023 season and advanced to the playoffs with fourth place performance this season.
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Sunderland must cross the last gateway to achieve its dream. On the 25th, they will play Sheffield United in the final round of the Championship Playoff at Wembley Stadium, the holy site of English football. Sheffield defeated Bristol in the play-off semi-finals. The winning team will win the last remaining EPL promotion ticket. Earlier, Leeds and Burnley were directly promoted to the EPL as No. 1 and No. 2 in the championship. In the championship, three teams will be promoted to the EPL.
Ballard, who became the winning hero, told Sky Sports after the game "I can't remember what happened. That's what happened"This didn't seem to be our day, but everyone tried desperately to make something to celebrate" he said in an excited statement.
Sunderland, who won 2-1 in the first leg, were able to advance to the final with only 14 minutes left before the regular-time deadline, but were dragged away by giving the opening goal to Fren Mason-Clark.
In overtime, which was a combined score of 2-2, it seemed likely to take a penalty shootout due to the flow of the game. However, in the second minute of extra time in the second half, Sunderland's center back Ballard's header shook the net as it was. Later, Coventry's Haji Wright received a pass from Japanese midfielder Tatsuhiro Sakamoto and had a perfect scoring chance, but he failed to score due to the wrong timing of the header.
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Sunderland coach Regis Le Brees, from France, said "It's fantastic. This scenario is truly remarkable"The players seemed nervous at the beginning of the game, but we were better in overtime. We played our own football, and now we're enjoying it."
Sunderland is known to be a team that Ki Sung-yueng (Seoul) and Ji Dong-won (Suwon FC) used to be in the past. Midfielder Jov Bellingham, now well-known as the younger brother of Real Madrid superstar Jude Bellingham, plays a key role in the team.
Lampard, who was appointed in November last year, said, `Our ranking was 17th in December last year. We were very good in the second half of the season. Congratulations to Sunderland, but in two games we were the better team."
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
