This Bank Holiday Monday sees the match described as "the richest game in football", as Norwich City take on Middlesbrough in the Championship Play-Off Final at Wembley.
It has earned this moniker as victory in the game is worth an estimated £120m to the winning club. That said next years Play-Off final with the introduction of the new tv rights deal will be worth as estimated £230 million, which is a huge incentive to the winning team to retain their top flight status.
Both clubs navigated tricky Semi-Finals with Boro overcoming Brentford 5-1 on aggregate, and Norwich coming through the East-Anglian derby 4-2 against Ipswich.
Only once in the last 16 years has the team finishing 4th been promoted via the play-offs, although Boro fans will be pleased to know that that was last season when QPR won promotion from that spot.
The best 2 teams truly are in the final though.
Middlesbrough in Aitor Karanka’s first full season in charge were never out of the top 5 since the start of October, and actually led the table with 2 games to go. The Spaniard used his connection to Jose Mourinho well in bringing in several Chelsea players, including their top scorer of Patrick Bamford.
Norwich were always going to be there or there abouts, and but for an indifferent start to the season that saw Neil Adams lose his job they could well have secured automatic promotion well before the end. Instead under the guidance of little know manager Alex Neil they finished 3 points shy of the promised land, and will now look towards top scorer Cameron Jerome to help them return to the top flight after an absence of just one season.
The Teessiders on the other hand have been in the Championship since 2009 when their 11 year stay in the top flight came to an end, and they can look to the positive stat that in both league games this season they have come out on top, winning 1-0 at Norwich just last month, and comprehensively 4-0 at the Riverside in November, although as we have seen time and time again form tends to go out of the window in the Wembley final.