Sheffield Wednesday make EFL history in rally to third-tier playoff final

Sheffield Wednesday defeated Peterborough United 4-0 in the first leg to go to the League One playoff final by penalty shootout on Thursday, pulling off the biggest turnaround in English Football League playoff history. After Friday’s crushing defeat, Wednesday, who finished 19 points ahead of Peterborough in the regular season and just missed immediate promotion from the third division, seemed hopeless.However, encouraged by the Hillsborough home crowd, they overcame the match to win 5-1 after extra time and then maintained their composure to win 5-3 in the shootout, igniting wild celebrations as the supporters flooded the field.

After nine minutes, Michael Smith scored a penalty kick to start the comeback, and Lee Gregory cut the deficit in half before halftime to give Wednesday hope. In the eighth minute of stoppage time, Liam Palmer poked home from close range to cause chaos in the seats after Reece James made it 3-0 for the evening.

Another twist occurred in the opening half of extra time when a cross deflected in off the unfortunate Gregory, giving Peterborough the lead on aggregate. Callum Paterson’s calm finish in the 112th minute, however, forced a shootout because a tired Wednesday would not concede. Then, as Dan Butler hammered his penalty against the bar for Peterborough, Wednesday scored all of their penalties.Jack Hunt scored the game-winning goal to take Wednesday to Wembley and give them a chance to play in the Championship again.

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