2024 EFL League Two play-off Final

2024 EFL League Two play-off final

Crawley Town Crewe Alexandra 2 0
Report
Date	19 May 2024 (2024-05-19)
Venue	Wembley Stadium, London
Referee	Ben Toner
Attendance	33,341
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The 2024 EFL League Two play-off final was an association football match played on 19 May 2024 at Wembley Stadium, London, between Crewe Alexandra and Crawley Town. The match determined the fourth and final team to gain promotion from EFL League Two, the fourth tier of English football, to EFL League One. The top three teams of 2023–24 EFL League Two, Stockport County, Wrexham and Mansfield Town gained automatic promotion to League One, while the clubs placed from fourth to seventh in the table took part in the 2024 Football League play-offs. This was the 38th fourth tier play-off final since the play-offs began in 1987, and was Crawley's first appearance at Wembley.

Route to the final

Main article: 2024 English Football League play-offs#League Two

EFL League Two final table, leading positions

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Stockport County (C, P)	46	27	11	8	96	48	+48	92
2	Wrexham (P)	46	26	10	10	89	52	+37	88
3	Mansfield Town (P)	46	24	14	8	90	47	+43	86
4	Milton Keynes Dons	46	23	9	14	83	68	+15	78
5	Doncaster Rovers	46	21	8	17	73	68	+5	71
6	Crewe Alexandra	46	19	14	13	69	65	+4	71
7	Crawley Town	46	21	7	18	73	67	+6	70

Source: EFL Official Website
(C) Champion; (P) Promoted

Crewe Alexandra finished the regular 2023–24 season in sixth place in EFL League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. They finished 15 points behind Mansfield Town (who were promoted in third place), 17 behind second-placed Wrexham and 21 points behind league winners Stockport County.

Crewe ended the season with only one win in their last nine league games. They played fourth placed Doncaster Rovers in a two-leg semi-final. The first leg was played at Crewe's Mornflake Stadium on 6 May. Doncaster Rovers won the game 2–0 with goals from Luke Molyneux and Harrison Biggins. On 10 May in the return leg at Doncaster's Eco-Power Stadium, Crewe overturned the two-goal first-leg deficit with goals from Mickey Demetriou and an own–goal from James Maxwell. The match was decided with a penalty shoot–out which Crewe won 4–3 with goalkeeper Max Stryjek, at the club on an emergency loan from Wycombe Wanderers, saving penalties from Zain Westbrooke and Hakeeb Adelakun. With the win, Crewe became the fourth team in play-off history to come back from a two-goal deficit in the first-leg, on their home ground, and still make the final.

Crawley Town finished in seventh place, a point behind Crewe Alexandra. They played fourth placed team, Milton Keynes Dons who finished in fourth place, eight points behind third placed Mansfield Town. Playing in their first play–offs, in the first–leg, played on 7 May at Crawley's Broadfield Stadium, Crawley won 3–0 with goals from Liam Kelly, Jay Williams and Ronan Darcy. The second leg was played on 11 May at Stadium MK. After only three minutes Jay Williams scored for Crawley, Danilo Orsi adding a second in the 30th minute. Max Dean scored for Milton Keynes Dons late in the first–half. The one–sided game continued in the second–half with Orsi scoring in the 48th minute. Dean's penalty was saved by Crawley goalkeeper, Corey Addai before Jack Roles scored in the 80th minute and Orsi completed his hat–trick in the second minute of added time to make the final score 5–1 and 8–1 on aggregate, the largest aggregate victory in EFL play–off history, as Crawley advanced to the play–off final and their first ever game at Wembley.

Match

Background

The match was Crawley Town's first appearance at Wembley in their 128-year history. The club were allocated 19,556 tickets for the West End of Wembley Stadium and a maximum of 38,676 tickets, if required. Crewe Alexandra were allocated 38,693 tickets for the East End of Wembley Stadium from the North Stand round to the South Stand.

The match was televised live by Sky Sports on both its Football and Main Event channels and was also available for live streaming on Sky Go and NOW. BBC Local Radio stations covered the game for each team: BBC Radio Stoke for Crewe Alexandra and BBC Radio Sussex and BBC Radio Surrey for Crawley Town. Talksport 2 provided national radio commentary.

Match Report

Crawley Town won promotion to League One with a deserved 2-0 victory against Crewe Alexandra at Wembley.

Goals from Danilo Orsi and the excellent Liam Kelly capped a dominant display for the Sussex side in the League Two play-off final.

Orsi followed up his semi-final hat-trick heroics with a cute finish with the outside of his foot to give the Reds a first-half lead.

Crewe thought they had a penalty after the break but saw the decision overturned following a VAR check, which is in use in all the EFL play-off finals, after Christopher Long went down under a challenge from goalkeeper Corey Addai.

But Kelly sealed a fine performance with a deserved goal to send his side back to the third tier of English football for the first time since 2015.

Crawley dominated possession from the start and looked the stronger of the two sides despite a quiet opening 20 minutes.

Kelly then carved out the first meaningful chance of the match, starting a fine passing move and receiving the ball from Orsi before sending a weak shot into the arms of Crewe goalkeeper Max Stryjek.

Crewe began to get a foothold in the game and almost took the lead as Elliott Nevitt won the ball in the Crawley half and sent a right-foot shot towards the bottom corner, with Crawley keeper Addai turning it round the post.

But Crawley’s semi-final hat-trick hero Orsi soon gave his side a deserved lead with the outside of his foot to finish a lovely move.

Four minutes before the break, midfielder Kelly - so often the architect for Crawley - played a neat one-two before feeding Orsi, who took the ball past the falling Ed Turns and finished neatly for his 25th goal of the season.

Crawley were buoyant and almost doubled their lead immediately with Jeremy Kelly’s effort deflected narrowly wide before Klaidi Lolos fired over the bar in added time as the Sussex side ended the half in total control.

A moment of controversy came early in the second as a mix-up between Adam Campbell and Addai put Long through one-on-one with the Crawley keeper.

Addai threw a leg out and Long went down under the challenge, with referee Ben Toner pointing to the spot and showing Addai a yellow card.

But the video assistant referee directed him to look at the screen, with replays showing a clear contact on the ball and Toner reversing the decision.

Crewe keeper Stryjek’s blushes were then spared as he hesitated under pressure from Orsi before a foul was given against the striker.

Crawley were applying pressure and it seemed a question of when, rather than if, they would double their lead, with substitute Ronan Darcy twice going close.

It was Kelly who capped a magnificent performance with his sixth goal of the season to effectively seal victory with five minutes of normal time left.

One again searching for Orsi in the middle, his left-foot cross was cut out by the sliding Crewe captain Mickey Demetriou, the ball coming back to Kelly with Stryjek pulled out of position and free to place the ball into an empty net in front of the jubilant Crawley fans.

While 10 minutes of added time gave Crewe some hope, Crawley almost embellished their winning margin at the death as Orsi forced a save from Stryjek.

Details

19 May 2024 (2024-05-19) 13:00 BST	Crawley Town	2–0	Crewe Alexandra	Wembley Stadium, London Attendance: 33,341 Referee: Ben Toner
		Report	Orsi  41' Kelly  85'

Crewe Alexandra

Crawley Town

GK 42 Max Stryjek RB 28 Lewis Billington CB 12 Ed Turns CB 05 Mickey Demetriou (c) LB 03 Rio Adebisi CM 08 Conor Thomas CM 11 Joel Tabiner RW 10 Shilow Tracey AM 21 Aaron Rowe LW 07 Chris Long CF 20 Elliott Nevitt Substitutes: Head Coach: Lee Bell

GK 01 Corey Addai CB 30 Will Wright CB 03 Dion Conroy (c) CB 06 Laurence Maguire RM 02 Kellan Gordon CM 26 Jay Williams CM 04 Liam Kelly LM 19 Jeremy Kelly RW 08 Klaidi Lolos LW 28 Adam Campbell CF 09 Danilo Orsi Substitutes: Head Coach: Scott Lindsey

Match Stats

• Match Stats

Overall	Crawley Town	Crewe Alexandra
Goals scored	2	0
Total shots	15	8
Shots on target	7	3
Ball possession	63%	37%
Corner kicks	6	1
Fouls committed	11	13

See also

• 2023–24 EFL League Two

External links

• Match report at BBC.co.uk