When the half-time whistle blows at Wembley on Saturday afternoon, Tom Lockyer will temporarily replaceSheffield Unitedand Sunderland as the centre of attention.
It is two years since Lockyer collapsed on England’s most famous pitch after experiencing atrial fibrillation during Luton’s Championshipplayoff final win against Coventryand almost 18 months since he had a cardiac arrest andalmost died while playing for the clubat Bournemouth.
His life was saved by prompt cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation and now, as an ambassador for the British Heart Foundation’s Every Minute Matters campaign, Lockyer and the former footballer turned Hollywood actor Vinnie Jones will offer an on-pitch CPR demonstration. The hope is that a decent percentage of the 80,000 Wembley crowd will be inspired to acquire this vital skill.
If Lockyer’s presence places the losing finalists’ pain in important context, two managers who, in different ways, have breathed fresh life into their clubs will be desperate to avoid missing out on at least £220m in additional income next season. That is the prize awaiting the winner of football’s so-called richest game in the Premier League’s promised land.
While United’s Chris Wilder has achieved five promotions with four clubs during a career embracing almost every level of English football’s pyramid, Régis Le Bris remains a relative novice.
Not that a 49-year-old Frenchman who has spent most of his working life as a youth coach and became a manager – at Lorient – three years ago can be underestimated after his startling rejuvenation of an unusually young squad.
For far too long playoffs have felt impossibly high altitude for a United side who havenever won promotion this way, losing four finals. Wilder has addressed theproblem by reminding his players that the Wembley air is really not all that thin and maintaining that history is bunk. His hopes of avoiding another demoralising repetition of the past should be enhanced by Gustavo Hamer’s presence. Two years ago the Brazil-born attacking midfielder scored for Coventry against Luton at Wembley and, as the Championship player of the season, he possesses the confidence and class to alter the Blades’ playoff story.
Whatever the result, the occasion will be poignant for everyone connected to United. “We’re incredibly sad George is not with us,” said Wilder, remembering the team’s much-loved former right-back George Baldock. The Greece defenderdrowned in his swimming poolin Athens last autumn, shortly after joining Panathinaikos.
Baldock, known as “Starman”, was a big favourite at Bramall Lane who twice played an integral part in helping United win promotion to the top tier. “We’ve tried not to use George’s death as a motivational tool,” Wilder said last week. “But his spirit has been with us on the journey. His old shirt has always been in our dressing room, home or away, this season. As a player, and a person as well, George was incredibly driven, always wanting to be the best.”
United’s hopes of holding their own at elite level were boosted in December when five financially challenged years under the ownership of Saudi Arabia’s Prince Abdullah were ended by a takeover.
It placed a club relegated from the Premier League last spring under the control of COH Sports, a US-based consortium that immediately extended Wilder’s contract and bankrolled seven January signings including Ben Brereton Díaz, Tom Cannon and Hamza Choudhury.
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They benefit from operating in front of Michael Cooper, one of the second tier’s most reliable goalkeepers. Wilder describes the quiet Devonian as “a librarian rather than a rockstar” but “extremely effective”.
Sunderland,semi-final losers to Luton,with Lockyer on the scoresheet, two years ago, lack similar experience and finished the season 14 points behind Saturday’s opponents. Only two of the Sunderland XI that started the second leg of the semi-final against Coventry were aged over 25 but the squad bristles with the youthful verve and fearlessness epitomised by the 17-year-old Chris Rigg and 19-year-old Jobe Bellingham. It also contains the gamechanging skills of the Roma loanee playmaker Enzo Le Fée who, from the age of 10, was mentored through a troubled childhood by Le Bris.
Wilder is suitably wary yet undaunted. “Sunderland have plenty of energy, quality and personality,” he said. “We need to be bang at it. This is one of the biggest games in world football and Wembley is not a place for losers. But we know how to win.”
As Le Bris addressed reporters in Sunderland’s training ground on Thursday, a BBC radio commentator presented him with an elegant ribboned cake box containing a batch of the pink slices that remind the Breton of his favourite French patisseries.
A manager noted for his capacity to create powerful connectivity and build strong bonds seemed touched by this good luck gift but those traybakes will taste infinitely better if it is mission accomplished on Saturday.
“When I first met with the players last summer, and it was here, in this room, I asked them: ‘What is this season’s purpose?’” Le Bris recalled. “They said: ‘We want promotion’ – and here we are. We don’t know the future so, when you have an opportunity like this, it’s important to catch it.”