Today Cardiff City Vs Blackpool Championship Play Off
Tomorrow: Toulon vs Cardiff Blues Amlin Cup FinalBilled as the richest match in club football, an estimated £90m is at stake in the winner-takes-all Championship play-off final, which will propel one of these sides into the big time.
For Blackpool, who started the season among the favourites for relegation and have not been in the top flight since 1971, promotion would be an amazing achievement. It would also see them go from the bottom division to the Premier League in the space of nine years. And it would be a crowning moment for boss Ian Holloway, who tasted play-off agony at Cardiff's hands while QPR boss in 2003.
City's extra-time victory at the Millennium Stadium that day took them into the second tier for the first time in 18 years. Now they are looking to go a step further and compete in the top division for the first time since 1962. Manager Dave Jones is hoping to repeat his 2003 play-off triumph, when he took Wolves up. His position at Cardiff was in doubt after their capitulation resulted in them being nudged out of the top six on the final day of last season. One year on, he could be about to seal his place in the club's folklore.
While Blackpool have defied the odds to get this far, Cardiff have defied serious off-the-field problems. Their financial future has been uncertain all season, but they now have a chance to hit the jackpot and emphatically wipe out their debts
ALLEZ LES BLEUS!!! ALLEZ CARDIFFFFF CARDIFFFFF ALLEZ LES BLEUSCardiff Blues cannot be accused of following in the footsteps of many predecessors as they contemplate what lies ahead in Marseille on Sunday where they face Toulon in the Amlin Challenge Cup Final.
Not for Dai Young's side the comfortable route of making their home ground a fortress and sneaking occasional wins away from home. Instead they have become trendsetters in top-flight sport, having won their last eight away games, including the 55-20 Cup quarter-final at Newcastle, followed by an even more impressive 18-15 win in the mud and rain at Wasps.
In that last triumph the Blues overcame the disadvantage of conditions that should have undermined the off-loading style that has made them such a potent threat since the turn of the year. Those factors - away wins and beating the opposition and conditions - have shown the Blues capable of bucking trends. And that, allied with the confidence boosted by recent form, is what they hope can carry them to victory against Toulon's star-studded French Top 14 side.
Having already tasted defeat in a Challenge Cup final, Wales and British and Irish Lions prop Gethin Jenkins says Toulon will be under greater pressure at Stade Velodrome while the Blues can take a more relaxed mindset to the south of France. Jenkins and fly-half Ceri Sweeney played in Pontypridd's 25-22 defeat by Sale in the 2002 Challenge Cup final and the prop says: "On the road we've built a lot of confidence. I don't know what it is - we've gone there, got the job done, been pretty relaxed on the road. "Having the minority of fans has spurred us on - when you're back's against the wall there's no pressure to win away from home. "I think Sunday's the same. All the pressure is on Toulon. They've played a few home games there. We ground out a win against Wasps and it's really put us in good stead for this weekend "Everyone's expecting them to turn up and beat us quite easily so we know how we can put our game on them and we're confident we can compete and get a win.
"I don't think the Wasps conditions suited the way we've been playing. For the five weeks before that we'd been playing some good, expansive rugby and then we had to resort to the conditions for that game. "That was all it was about that day. We didn't care how we did it, it was about winning the game. They didn't play much rugby and we struggled to play a bit ourselves because of the conditions. "But we ground out a win and it's really put us in good stead for this weekend. "So we're hoping the good weather out there [Marseille] and the firm surface will suit us."
However, in 15 years of trying, no Welsh team has won European silverware. Glorious failure was the outcome for Pontypridd in 2002 and Cardiff RFC in the inaugural 1996 Heineken Cup final when they took Toulouse to extra time before succumbing 21-18. Caerphilly competed in the now-defunct third-tier 2003 European Shield competition and were a comfortable second best in a 40-12 defeat by Castres.
But failure on the big Heineken Cup stage has caused most angst among Welsh rugby fans, players and officials. For all the effort and sacrifice that went into the creation of at first five and then four professional teams, there has been nothing but disappointment in Europe's biggest cross-border tournament. The vastly superior budgets available to French clubs and fluctuations in the comparative value of sterling against Euro have undoubtedly contributed to Welsh teams' fates.
It could be the same on Sunday with Blues boss Dai Young pointing out Toulon have been able to mimic the likes of Munster and Leinster by effectively running two squads - one for domestic purposes and the other to take on the challenge of Europe. However, in Toulon's case it seems their best resources have been ploughed into the Top 14 that brought second place in the regular season before play-off extra-time defeat by Clermont Auvergne on Sunday. That leaves Toulon's mental state somewhat of a mystery. Will they view Sunday's clash as a chance to redeem their season or a shallow reminder of the Top 14 crown that got away?
Jenkins, his team-mates and Welsh rugby's ever-hopeful but so far disappointed fans will find out soon enough.
