(The Guardian)
By. Mihir Kore
In dramatic fashion, Nottingham Forest are promoted back in the Premier League after 23 years!
As the 2021-22 football season came to an end in the first division of English Football, the second division still had one final game to be played. The last English game of the season was to guarantee promotion to the elite Premier League. This was the big final of the second division and for watchers of the English Football League, this was the EFL Cup Playoffs Final.
The match was held between Huddersfield Town A.F.C and Nottingham Forest F.C, in the prestigious Wembley Stadium. The stakes were high as each team worked extremely hard to get to this stage but there could be only one winner, and this time it was none other than Nottingham after a nail bitting ninety minutes.
Nottingham had the upper hand in this game as they had more shots on target (2) as well total shots registered (9) as compared to Huddersfield’s five shots and zero on target. Even then, the decider between the two was an own goal scored by Levi Colwill in the 43rd minute which is all that she would write. Huddersfield fans would argue that there were penalty decisions not given which could have potentially changed the outcome of the game, but the course stayed the same.
(Getty Images)
Ultimately Nottingham Forest showed their passion and desire throughout their whole campaign and not only just in this final. Steve Cooper who was appointed manager this year with a struggling lower table Nottingham squad has managed to do a complete 360 and has taken them into the Premier League. Players such as Brennan Johnson, Scott Mckenna, Djed Spence and Brice Samba were influential this season and played important parts in their promotion.
With this, we saw a spectacular match and an even better display of fans in the Wembley Stadium, around 70,000 of them to be exact. So, Nottingham is officially back in the Premier League joining Fulham F.C. and A.F.C. Bournemouth the next season.
In addition, this is also an immense moment for the club as the winner gets a financial incentive of 132 million pounds to spend for the next season after securing a promotion. Could this be a game-changer for Nottingham Forest? It certainly gives more freedom to Steve Cooper to invest and make the team stronger considering many of their best players like Spence and James Garner are going to leave this summer due to their loans expiring.
In the end, this Championship season was thrilling and extremely entertaining, with new teams being promoted to the EFL Championship we can certainly hope for more drama and excitement next season as well.