Brentford will play in English football’s top flight next season for the first time in 74 years after beating Swansea 2-0 in the Championship play-off final.
Ivan Toney and Emiliano Marcondes scored for the Bees to secure their berth in next season’s Premier League for the first time ever.
It has been 74 years since Brentford were a part of the first division of English football but the agonizing wait is finally over for the side.
Brentford have been involved in the playoffs on 9 previous occasions but failed to ever progress. However, it was 10th time lucky for the Bees, as they went one step ahead this season after losing out in the final against Fulham a year back.
Fulham were relegated back to the Championship after finishing 18th in this season’s Premier League and Brentford will enjoy this moment to the fullest.
An Ivan Toney penalty followed by an Emiliano Marcondes goal put them in firm control of the game as they took a comfortable 2-0 lead at half-time in Wembley. The west London club then held onto the victory to return to the top flight for the first time since 1947!
For Swansea, it is a second successive defeat in the playoffs. It was Brentford last year as well who had beaten the Swans in the semifinals. Jay Fulton was sent off in the second half for Swansea and there was no coming back for them after that as Brentford cruised through with the one-man advantage.
Swansea will now spend their fourth campaign in the second division of English football (the EFL Championship) and will be hoping to return to England’s elite next season again.
It was a strong start for Brentford, playing with really high intensity right from the get-go.
Nerves got the better of Freddie Woodman as he rushed off his line to bring down Bryan Mbeumo to concede a penalty that Toney opened the scoring with. He displayed absolute composure in slotting home from the penalty spot after just 10 minutes.
After 20 minutes, they doubled their lead thanks to a lightning counter-attack following a Swansea corner as Mbeumo raced half the length of the pitch before finding Mads Roerslev who calmly pulled the ball back for Marcondes to fire home and secure Premier League qualification.
