League 1:
Monday morning was a bad moment to be rooting for the “little guys” of the footballing world, but the afternoon got much better if you were in need of a wholesome underdog story. While state-bankrolled clubs may have essentially been given the green light to commit accounting fraud with impunity when CAS lifted Manchester City’s two-year Champions League ban and cut two-thirds of their fine from UEFA (more reaction on this to follow), Adebayo’s Akinfenwa’s endearing solicitation of a congratulatory message from Jurgen Klopp gave football fans an opportunity to let go of their cynicism as Wycombe Wanderers were promoted the second tier for the first time in their 133 year history.
Wycombe manager Gareth Ainsworth had only nine players at his disposal at the start of preseason, but the former Wycombe player and aspiring rockstar has seen his side tipped for relegation in August end up third in the table on a points-per-game basis and ultimately prevail in the playoffs.
Oxford had the lion’s share of possession Monday night, but Wycome weathered an Oxford storm in the middle of the second half after Mark Sykes’s mishit cross looped over a despairing Ryan Allsop three minutes before the hour mark. In the end, Anthony Stewart’s header on the doorstep early and a Joe Jacobson penalty with just over ten minutes of normal time left were enough to send the Chairboys up.
Allsop’s header was par for the course for Wycombe, who scored 24 times from set-pieces during the abbreviated league campaign. Given that Wycombe had one of the smallest budgets in the third tier, never mind the Championship, goals from set plays should be a fixture of the Buckinghamshire club’s upcoming fight for survival.
Just because the Chairboys are comfortable without the ball, however, does not mean that they can not entertain. Before the two goals Monday, Wycombe put six past Fleetwood Town over two legs. I am especially excited to see young winger Fred Onyedinma back in the Championship. The twenty-three year-old Nigerian looked electric against Fleetwood, scoring two goals in the second leg, and won the crucial penalty Monday after using his pace to latch on to a hopeful forward ball. For one reason or another, Onyedinma was unable to cement his place at Millwall, but he is certainly in Ainsworth’s good graces at Wycombe now.
Unfortunately, Wycombe’s playoff run did not solely consist of positive storylines, as racial abuse managed to rear its ugly head at a match without fans in the Chairboys second leg against Fleetwood. Akinfenwa alleged that he was called a “fat water buffalo” by a member of the Fleetwood staff, and while the intent was hopefully not racist, Akinfenwa explained how the comment was derogatory and hurtful in a statement posted on the club’s official website. Along with recent instances of racial abuse involving Wilfred Zaha and David McGoldrick, it was a timely reminder of the gravity of the stand taken collectively by the PFA in support of Black Lives Matter.
I also wanted to note an unfortunate casualty of the playoff semifinals. The top two tiers can only be better with Portsmouth in it, but Pompey fans have seen their return to the big time delayed yet again. On a positive note for Notre Dame fans, however, 2020 graduate and former Irish No. 1 Duncan Turnbull is by all accounts impressing in his first stint as a full professional at Fratton Park. He is still just a third-choice keeper for now, but with rumors of Crystal Palace swooping in for twenty-two-year-old shot-stopper Alex Bass — who has split time with first-choice Craig MacGillivray — perhaps meaningful action on the South Coast awaits Turnbull in the near future.
League 2:
Northampton Town seemingly did not receive any good luck from the cutout of celebrity fan Shaquille O’Neal, as the Cobblers lost their first-leg semi-final at the Sixfields stadium 2-0 to Cheltenham. However, after that rough return to competitive football after more than 100 days of uncertainty concerning whether they would have a chance to earn promotion at all, Keith Curle’s men ran riot with seven unanswered goals. Northampton turned it around at Cheltenham before smacking Exeter City 4-0 in a cavernous Wembley on June 29th. The Grecians may have had 60% possession, but it was Northamapton who were thoroughly dominant. The Cobblers proved they could both carve Exter open and cause havoc with basic “route-one” stuff. The fourth goal from the long throw was no fluke; Exeter simply could not deal with balls coming into their penalty area all evening. Northampton grabbed the last spot in the playoffs by finishing seventh on a points per game basis, but their performance two weeks ago suggests they have just as good a chance of surviving in the third tier as automatic promotion winners Swindon Town, Crewe Alexandra, and Plymouth Argyle.
National League:
Following the suspension of the fifth tier, fans of league leaders Barrow AFC were left worrying that the COVID-19 pandemic would brutally curtail their club’s return to the Football League, 48 years after they were voted out of the EFL in 1972. Back then, the bottom four clubs in the fourth division were required to seek re-election, and despite finishing third from bottom and eight points clear of bottom club Crewe, the Bluebirds were the obvious target. No one was exactly excited to make the trip to Barrow-in-Furness on England’s remote north-west coast. Manager Ian Evatt, who left for Bolton after guiding Barrow to promotion this season, called the coastal city of just over 50,000 the “biggest cul-de-sac in the world.” The club’s ground, Holker Street, is now being renovated to meet Football League standards, but the team trains over 120,000 miles away in Manchester to ease the commute for the squad. Now, league two sides have no choice but to visit the city where Britain builds its nuclear submarines (a legacy acknowledged at the top of Barrow’s badge), and they better hope the long journey does not take anything out of their legs. The Bluebirds did not earn the moniker “Barrowcelona” this year for nothing.
The National League playoffs, meanwhile, begin this Friday with the playoff eliminators for the 4th-7th finishers. Given the potentially existential financial duress COVID-19 has placed on England’s smaller clubs, the gravity of this competition can not be understated. According to Evatt, Barrow’s promotion meant revenues will jump from approximately £80,000 to £1.2 million next season. Harrogate Town, who lamented losing the chance to close the seven-point gap between them and Barrow due to the league’s suspension (Harrogate also had a game in hand), should be favorites to earn this lucrative financial windfall as well.
Championship:
With three matchdays left, it looks like Leeds are on track to do late legends Norman Hunter and Jack Charlton proud by bringing Premier League football back to Elland Road after their famous fifteen-year exile from the top flight. Meanwhile, Brentford have been pushing West Brom to the brink in the race for the last automatic promotion spot, and there are six teams within four points of Cardiff in sixth — the final spot in perhaps the richest playoff competition in sports.
Matchday 44 (out of 46) begins this afternoon, and expect a more detailed primer on the contenders in the automatic promotion and playoff chase before the final day.
Also upcoming on Added-Time:
I’ll refrain from raging about Manchester City’s successful appeal to CAS until the court releases its written reports. For now, I’ll quietly seethe about how a state-backed club guilty of mind-boggling spending was so arrogant that it used fraudulent sponsorship deals to circumvent FFP regulations. UEFA seems to have left City’s legal team with too many loopholes to exploit, and now Sheikh Mansour can laugh at a fine smaller than the transfer fee Liverpool paid for Xherdan Shaqiri.
If someone accused me of being quite Anglo-Centric right now, I would have no one but myself to blame. Therefore, a long-overdue tribute to the Bundesliga — which demonstrated to other major leagues that playing out competitions responsibly during a global pandemic was possible — is incoming and will also include my thoughts on Josh Sargent’s Werder Bremen scraping past Heidenheim in the Bundesliga’s promotion/relegation playoff.
As I mentioned earlier, both members of Leeds’ legendary center-back partnership in the 60s and 70s, Jack Charlton and Norman Hunter, are now no longer with us after Charlton passed away Sunday. The two World Cup Winners for England in 1966 also embarked on managerial careers, though Charlton achieved more recognition for his work on the touchline thanks to his World Cup heroics while leading the Republic of Ireland. I already paid tribute to Norman Hunter when he passed away in April due to COVID-19 complications, so neglecting to pen a similar memorial to Charlton would just feel wrong.
Finally, Atalanta’s fairy-tale UCL campaign turned sour when it became a well-documented “biological bomb” for coronavirus. However, the Nerazzurri have given fans in Bergamo, the epicenter of Italy’s disastrous outbreak, a reason to smile during the restart of Serie A with their scintillating form. A feature previewing their clash with PSG in Lisbon and a summary of how the club ascended from Serie B to the quarterfinals of the Champions League in less than a decade will be in the works shortly.
