Hull City and Middlesbrough draw swords in the 2025-26 Championship play-off final at Wembley on Saturday afternoon (3.30pm) for the chance to win the third and final spot in next season’s Premier League.
It would seem unfitting to jump into the nitty gritty of this Championship play-off final in prospect, without referencing the unique events leading up to it. Without further ado, let’s delve into it.
READ: Championship play-off final stats and records you might see
So, what happened?
For the first time ever, perhaps not just in England but presumably in most sporting nations around the world, the two teams that won the semi-finals of a competition won’t be the two teams that compete in the final.
This comes after Southampton, who defeated Middlesbrough in the semi-finals, were expelled from the play-offs earlier this week for breaching EFL regulations in relation to the infamous Spygate scandal. Middlesbrough have subsequently taken their place in the final and will now take on Hull at Wembley.
The closest example came in 1990, when Sunderland won promotion to the First Division at Swindon’s expense, despite losing the play-off Final to the latter, who were disqualified over illegal payments.
Other than that, it’s down to early round FA Cup matches, and High School, youth and regional cases in America – but in terms of this magnitude it’s unheard of, for the younger generation.
Was the correct decision made?
Well, Southampton CEO Phil Parsons admits that spying has gone on, in multiple instances, but argues that the scale of the punishment doesn’t fit the scale of the wrongdoing.
There may be a degree of validity to that, because the advantage gained was incremental: knowing what the opposition are going to do is 1% of the battle but stopping it is the other 99% and Southampton did that – it’s not like getting a tangible advantage on the field like diving to win a free-kick which happens all the time, to barely a yellow card.
The fact this has become a national story is because it’s a different type of cheating that we’ve not encountered before, other than the Biela situation from 2019.
And yet, it’s precisely because foul play has become so commonplace in the game over the last 30 years, because we’re in an era of ethical fading, that there’s something refreshing about cheating getting caught and punishment being served – for once.
So, does it represent the serving of justice that Middlesbrough are in the Play-Off Final? Well, not fully. Boro didn’t win the Semi-Final, and from that point of view, by definition, their place feels unearned.
But they’ve been given a lifeline, and now they want to be a quarter of a billionaires.
Middlesbrough’s second chance
Middlesbrough’s automatic promotion push fell down through wasteful finishing, especially at the business end.
After coming out victorious at Sheffield United in February, with a fabulous performance at Bramall Lane that installed them as the new promotion favourites, Boro lost a key title clash with Coventry the following Monday, giving way to a 14-game run that yielded a mere 18 points for Kim Hellberg’s side, allowing Ipswich to swan into second without necessarily over-excelling.
Tommy Conway plays his best football out wide as a creator, and had a fantastic game in that regard in the goalless first leg draw with Southampton, particularly in the first half, and has an exceptional work ethic.
However, he’s not a killer in front of goal – he’s unavailable, too, with an ankle injury – and profligacy from him and David Strelec has seen far too many dropped points for the Boro in winnable games.
The good news for Boro is the expected return of Hayden Hackney – the Championship player of the season – who has not featured since mid-March, but could now be set to play a part in the final.
Don’t write off Hull City
Hull finished their league season in even worse fashion, with Sergej Jakirovic’s side’s 2-1 final day win over Norwich recovering their play-off spot, after going into the day 7th, being their first success in seven games.
In fact, the Tigers have only won four in 17 from the start of February.
One of them came against bottom side Sheffield Wednesday, the weakest opponents in the Championship by some margin, and one of them was a 1-0 win at Portsmouth where they only had two shots at goal all game to 22, and scored because of a fortuitous goalkeeping mishit.
Let’s give Hull some respect, though: they’re up there for a reason.
The Humbersiders have attacking players who can do damage: forwards Oli McBurnie and Joe Gelhardt have scored 32 league goals between them, while wide men Liam Millar and the returning Mohamed Belloumi can do damage.
Belloumi, in fact, scored a delightful goal in the 2-0 semi-final second leg, as he looks to break into the Algeria setup ahead of the 2026 World Cup, and has made a tremendous difference since returning from injury this spring.
Meanwhile, Ivor Pandur is an excellent goalkeeper, having made the most saves in the Championship, John Egan is a seasoned defender, while Player of the Year Regan Slater has held down the midfield on his own at times.
Nonetheless, Hull are fortunate to get to where they’ve got to, and are very much the underdogs.
Saturday’s tactical match-up
It’s almost a given how the pattern of the game will take place: Middlesbrough are comfortably superior between both boxes and should dominate the territory.
Even when Boro went on a run of dropping points in five consecutive home games against bottom half opposition, their performance levels didn’t drop an awful lot from when they’d been winning every week – it was just a case of poor conversion.
So, the chances of the Teessiders creating more than their opponents are pretty high: what’s less clear is what either team will do with those opportunities.
If Boro had McBurnie up top, they’d be considerably even bigger favourites than they currently are at 5/6 – see odds below – to be victorious on the day (then again, if that were the case, they’d have probably got automatic promotion and Hull would have finished mid-table!).
Whereas, because Hull have the capacity to slice open teams on turnovers in five or six isolated moments in a game, and they’ve taken their chances this season time and again, the result is more in doubt.
What are the odds saying?
| Win (90 mins) | To Lift Trophy | |
|---|---|---|
| Middlesbrough | 5/6 | 9/20 |
| Hull City | 13/5 | 9/5 |
| Draw | 31/10 | / |
| Odds courtesy of bet365 & correct as of 22/05/2026 |
Middlesbrough to win in 90 minutes and Both Teams To Score can be backed at 10/3 with bet365, and that’s my best bet.
McBurnie or Gelhardt might find the net for the Tigers, but in the end the sheer volume of chances Middlesbrough can create should be too much work for Ivor Pandur.
Morgan Whittaker is capable of conjuring up a moment of brilliance out of nothing, and could shine on the big occasion: the individualistic forward is 11/8 to score anytime, after finishing the league season with three goals in as many games.
