League One play-off final Charlton Athletic v Sunderland

The League One play-off final will be played on Sunday the 26th May between Charlton Athletic and Sunderland. Charlton were relegated from the Championship in 2016 whereas Sunderland are looking to earn promotion one season after being demoted to League One.

Sunderland finished 5th in the table after losing the final league game of the season and were overtaken by Charlton. This meant that Sunderland had to face Portsmouth in the semi-final. Sunderland won the first game at home 1-0 with Chris Maguire getting the only goal of the game. In the second leg, the match ended 0-0 and Sunderland made it through to the final.

Charlton finished the season on a high as they were able to overtake both Sunderland and Portsmouth on the final day of the season. They then had to face Doncaster Rovers in the semi-final. This match was much more exciting than the other semi-final with the first game finishing 1-2 for Charlton. Doncaster got a late goal to give them some hope in the second leg. Charlton scored early in the second leg to seemingly end the game; however, Doncaster got a goal on the 11th minute to keep them in the tie. Neither team could get another goal and the game looked set to end with Charlton going through until the 88th minute when Butler got a dramatic late equaliser for Doncaster to send the game to extra-time. Doncaster then got another goal 10 minutes into the first half of extra time. However, their lead did not last long as one minute later Charlton equalised through Pratley. The match went to penalties with Doncaster missing the final two penalties to send Charlton to the final.

It is a very important match for both teams as they will not want to spend another season in League One and get back to the Championship to have any chance of trying to make it to the Premier League.