Coventry City and Ipswich Town have secured their places in next season's Premier League, but a third promotion berth remains to be decided. The Championship playoffs get under way this week, with Millwall, Hull City, Middlesbrough and Southampton competing for the last available place in the top flight.
As the Guardian reports, Millwall came closest to joining the automatic promotion places, finishing just a point behind Ipswich in third. It will be little consolation given how their season unfolded — for a period they appeared genuine contenders to go up without the lottery of the playoffs — but they arrive in the knockout rounds as a side that has shown it can sustain a promotion challenge over the course of a long campaign.
The historical weight of this moment is not lost on those who follow the club closely. According to the Guardian, Millwall have spent only two seasons in English football's top division. Their solitary title — Division Two in 1987-88 — brought them a debut season in the top flight in which they finished tenth, followed by relegation the year after. Decades have passed since. A playoff victory would represent by some distance the most significant moment in the modern era of the club.
Southampton, by contrast, are a side with considerable Premier League experience, and their presence in the playoff places reflects a campaign of steady recovery rather than surprise. Middlesbrough and Hull City complete the four, both clubs familiar with the rhythms of this division and the particular tension that the playoff format produces — two legs at the semi-final stage, then a single Wembley final in which an entire season is distilled into ninety minutes.
The playoff format has a tendency to scramble form and logic. The team that finishes third does not always prevail; nor does the one that looked most convincing across the season. History in this competition belongs to the side that peaks at the right moment. On the evidence of their final-week stumble — dropping enough points to hand Ipswich third place — Millwall will know they cannot afford another lapse. Whether they, or one of the three clubs behind them in the table, ultimately takes the Wembley final is a question that will not be answered for another few weeks.