Paul Robins did an amazing job at Coventry.
Crazy Coventry City fans cheered on their team's superb win over Middlesbrough in the play-off semi-finals, and a question mark hung in the air.
Will the Midlands team beat Luton Town? in the Wembley final it can wait, but is Mark Robins the most underrated manager in the country?
We knew he was good, but having taken a place at Coventry when they were in League Two back in 2017, he is now on the cusp of a third promotion at a club that didn't even play at their stadium two years ago due to rent. controversy.
No one expected Coventry to fight for promotion, not even their most optimistic fans thought they would end the campaign 90 minutes before the Premier League.
When they launched a campaign to move their first three home games in a stadium they still don't own, the Sky Blues were more embarrassed than anything else.
On a modest budget, they lived in the shadow of their neighbors from the Midlands for the better part of 20 years, but the Robins have been at the center of a renaissance that can no longer be ignored nationally.
Bottom of the table in early October, their climb up the table was already stunning. Robins has long been regarded as one of the best managers in the lower leagues, but in a few days he could be top boss for the first time in 22 years at Coventry.
Viktor Gjokores embodies the joy of playoff success. Photo: PA Wire/Owen Humphreys.
The 53-year-old won the Football League Trophy in his first season at Coventry, moved up from League Two in his second and knocked the club out of the game. from League One three years ago, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Quietly, unassumingly, but shrewdly, Robins has thrived away from the glare of the public eye. No wonder Coventry already awarded him a new four-year contract earlier this week.
He is already the fifth longest-serving manager in English football and is an example of patience and perseverance. «It seemed like the club had given up when I arrived, it seemed like it was done,» Robins said. “I had a lot of time, I had a lot of support and a lot of help, but I also took people by the scruff of the neck.
“We have a great chance to bring this club back to the top flight in one game, you would not have imagined when I took him over six years ago. The romantics among us will look at this story and it will show what can be done. It was brilliant.»
It was also a reminder of the unique appeal of the second tier of English football. Instead of former Premier League clubs like Norwich and Watford being relegated from the top flight last season due to their parachute payouts and favorite betting tags, it will be two teams that have risen from the bottom football pyramid, two clubs who had reason to be afraid. they were about to go out of business in Luton and Coventry, who would compete for the richest prize in European club football, promotion to the Premier League.
For Middlesbrough boss Michael Carrick, this was the first real setback of his young managerial career . He also watched the rapid transformation on Teesside and earned a lot of applause for it, but it was a strange performance on his part, which never really took off despite the support of the home crowd. All summer will burn. He and Borough would come again, but Coventry deserved it.
They were organized and persistent. On a busy night with so much at stake for the winners, the calmest heads often thrive. Coventry, of course. They missed chances, even the league's top scorer Victor Gjokeres couldn't convert a one-on-one in the first half, but they got the job done in the second half when Gustavo Hamer, playing only after a knee shot, lashed his shot through the crowd of bodies into the roof of the net.
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