Carlos Carvalhal had a dream, according to the Sheffield Wednesday fans and, while this was by no means a nightmare, the Owls’ manager must wait another season at least to fulfil his wishes.
Considering he was largely unheard of before his arrival at Hillsborough last summer, it was an achievement in itself to guide a team pieced together by loan signings and barely recognised as promotion contenders to within 90 minutes of a first season in the Premier League since 2000. But that does not soften the pain of falling at the final hurdle in what was said to be the most financially lucrative match ever played.
Instead it was Hull, under the astute management of Steve Bruce (earning his fourth promotion to the top flight here), who will return to joust with the giants for a third time in eight years.
Yet Wednesday and their brilliant, boisterous supporters can take much solace. They will be back next year, stronger and surely well disposed for an attack on the automatic promotion places. The key now will be for the owner, Dejphon Chansiri, to invest further and build on these solid foundations.
Irrespective of the result, those travelling from Sheffield left a lasting impression. One of the great things about the play-offs is the amount of tickets given to fans. Minus the desire of the corporate world to muscle in on the big day out, almost the entire allocation goes directly to the clubs. Therefore it was hard not to be a tad irritated when looking at thousands of empty seats in the Hull end, which Wednesday could have filled without issue.
Of course it was not necessarily City’s fault the uptake on Humberside was not as great, and as the Football League said before the game: “Throughout the week the League, Hull City and Wembley Stadium have explored all options in order to make some additional tickets available to Sheffield Wednesday supporters.”
They got some extras – raffled off in a vastly oversubscribed ballot – but that was nowhere near enough to satisfy the desire in the steel city. It should, however, be a lesson for the future and there is an obvious resolution: make sure the clubs sell their tickets block by block, keeping the seats nearest segregation until last.
No matter, the 40,000 in blue and white fortunate to be here – out of a total crowd of 70,189 – created a racket to make the hairs on the back of the neck spike. That is what happens when one of the most storied sides in the land spend a decade and a half in the doldrums, limping from disaster to farce and enduring spells in the third tier.
There were moments throughout, even when Hull were carving out opportunity after opportunity, where it was difficult to think coherently such was the noise. When those in black and amber erupted to celebrate Mo Diamé’s brilliant goal, the reaction at the opposite end was to raise the volume again. “Keep going. We still believe.”
An equaliser – nor, really, a sniff at one – never materialised and it was hard not to consider the one true advantage in Hull’s possession: requisite knowhow. While Wednesday were stagnating in recent years, Bruce’s team were enjoying success both in being promoted to the Premier League and in winning at Wembley (in the FA Cup semi-final two years ago, though defeat would follow in the final).
There was also a firm belief among the remaining few players in the Tigers’ squad from their automatic promotion three years ago that the class of ’16 are a stronger, more skilful group.
And while the dual experience of promotion and recent visits to the national stadium may have been beneficial to Bruce’s team, their profligacy kept Wednesday in the hunt before Diamé’s magic.
There was precious little to split the teams in the opening half-hour, at which point Hull acquired another gear. By the interval they really should have been in front, only to be denied by Wednesday’s brilliant goalkeeper, Keiren Westwood.
He, along with many of his team-mates, dropped to the ground at full-time, inconsolable and pondering what might have been. When Wednesday take time to reflect, though, this will have been a season where far more positives than negatives can be extracted.
The goalkeeper will link up with the Republic of Ireland on Monday morning and, while there have been murmurs over whether he deserves to be in the squad, he provided sufficient evidence here to suggest he should actually start instead of West Ham’s second-choice Darren Randolph. He produced several outstanding stops to deny Abel Hernández, Tom Huddlestone, Ahmed Elmohamady and, before the goal, Diamé.
Ultimately it was hard to deny Hull were the better team and full value for their Premier League return but, as one more rendition of Carlos had a Dream came booming from the Wednesday end, it was hard not to agree, even in defeat, with the final line of the chant. They are Sheffield Wednesday and, surely sooner rather than later, they are on their way back.
