Sunderland are Premier League againand they deserve it. They earned the right thanks to a season of hard toil and nerveless endeavour. They sealed the deal by staring down more experienced opponents in this playoff final, expressing an appetite for victory that would not be quenched. Two goals of top-flight quality got them over the line, and delirious communion with their supporters at the final whistle sealed a small moment in history.
They don’t talk much about the romance of the playoffs, they’re just too brutal for that. A year’s work can be overturned in an instant. A collective loss of form, an individual lack of concentration, and years of planning and ambition can be set on fire. The playoffs break hearts more than they make dreams come true and, often, celebrations at Wembley are followed by tears just a year later.
Sunderland may well return to the second tier next summer, but in the way they embraced their task at Wembley on Saturday was a reminder that the things wise men say are always there to be challenged.
Régis Le Bris’ team had upended all expectations this season by holding on to the coattails of the Championship’s parachute clubs with a squad of unheralded and youthful talent. For the first 70 minutes, it looked as if they might be edged out by a team that was a little cannier and with the kind of bench that only Premier League revenues can buy. But they stuck to their aims, rode the shifts in momentum, Le Bris made his changes and Eliezer Mayenda and Tommy Watson did not think twice before seizing their moments in front of goal.
It was Patrick Roberts who made the equaliser, his pass with the outside of the right boot cutting through the Blades’ midfield and beyond the outstretched Jack Robinson to find Mayenda who rifled the ball in the top corner. Roberts was one of four players in the squad who had featured against Wycombe in the League One playoff final three years ago. A second, Luke O’Nien, was the first to congratulate Mayenda, bursting from the bench despite having exited the play himself after just eight minutes with a dislocated shoulder.
In added time, Watson decided the match by latching on to a horrible mistake by Kieffer Moore to hit a shot just as unerring as Mayenda’s, but this time low and from range, into the corner. The 19-year-old tore his shirt off and burst towards the stands, his eyes sharp, his fist clenched. Another Sunderland academy graduate, Watson has played just 900 minutes of league football in his career. He has also already agreed a £10m deal to move to Brighton this summer.
In that one detail you are reminded of the limits of any misty-eyed thinking when it comes to English football in the 21st century. Watson is unlikely to be the only young talent to move on from the Stadium of Light this summer. Jobe Bellingham, imperious at the base of the Sunderland midfield, has already been linked with following in his brother’s footsteps and a move to Borussia Dortmund. There will be suitors for creative midfielder Chris Rigg and full back Trai Hume, whose crossing was a constant danger.
But Sunderland did not allow themselves to be overtaken by cynicism. Instead they chose to dream: of glory, of success through conviction, of completing a turnaround for a club that was floundering just a few years ago. They were backed in equal part by their supporters, who made the noise before the game, during and, of course, afterwards.
Sunderland had the highest average attendance in the Championship this past season at 40,000, a figure that would see them ninth biggest in the top flight too. They are a big club in most of the ways that matter. But in this match, in this moment, they drew on the motivation and the enthusiasm of the underdog. Their opponents, meanwhile, gave off the air of a side that have reached the heights and been chastened by what they found.
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After dominating early proceedings and leading through a Tyrese Campbell goal,Sheffield Uniteddropped off after a Harrison Burrows’ goal was overturned by VAR for an infringement by Moore. They dug in on the edge of their box and invited Sunderland on.
The steady stream of former Premier League players from the bench – Ben Brereton Díaz (later subbed off again), Tom Davies – could not change the dynamic. A year after a chastening Premier League relegation there was a sense that the Blades just did not want promotion as much and swathes of empty seats suggested their supporters felt the same.
Sunderland may yet find themselves bearing the same emotional scars, but as they contemplate a season among the Premier League giants they have a window in which to think big. They look determined to embrace it.