Hull City's 1-0 Wembley win over Middlesbrough FC contained important lessons for both clubs
Funny how life works out sometimes.
For two-and-half years, Acun Ilicali tried to build a Hull City side to play fantasy football with Championship Manager signings.
And yet in the season which took them back into the Premier League after nine years out they were not allowed to spend a penny in the transfer market, and secured promotion with a gritty, at times ugly, 1-0 win over Middlesbrough secured when a free transfer striker pounced on a goalkeeping mistake to tap in.
It was the sort of victory Hull's Turkish owner is supposed to hate, probably even thought he hated until he fully experienced how joyful it can feel.
If there is a lesson for the Tigers when the financial handcuffs come off this summer, there is certainly one for the Teessiders' idealistic young coach Kim Hellberg.
No sane Boro fan was happy because their team outplayed Hull, although can they really be said to have been better in a game where the objective is to score goals? Lewie Coyle had a header saved and Oli McBurnie put one against the crossbar before his decisive poacher's finish; Boro had no shots on target.
It was, in a nutshell, why football is so wonderful and why, if you supported the side who won the game via every metric bar the one that actually counts, so godawful.
Boro are the Championship's statistical champions – 2025-26's most possession, best passers, most dribbles, second-most shots, even fewest shots against – and where has it got them? That is why you should always try to watch football on the pitch not, as more and more seem to these days, on a spreadsheet.
"Philosophy" may be football's favourite buzzword as a decade of Pep Guardiola ends in England but even he knew: the game was, is and always will be about winning.
Ilicali was not crying at full-time because Hull had only seen 32 per cent of the ball, or because they had not provided the bums-off-seats entertainment he craves and sacks managers for not delivering. His were tears of joy – Hull are heading back to the Promised Land.
They will need to be pragmatic there too, and for as long as he keeps faith with Sergej Jakirovic as coach, they will be.
In this country at least, Jakirovic was a pub quiz answer 12 months ago, the coach behind the Champions League’s biggest loss (Bayern Munich 9 Dinamo Zagreb 2).
Transforming himself into the Championship's best manager this season was not a one-man job.
A Championship newbie when he joined in June, he needed to be furnished with players high on quality but higher still on character.
Even in Hull's end-of-season awards there was no prize for head of recruitment Martin Hodge but few in football have done their job better than the former Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper in 2025-26.
Without the characters Hodge assembled, even those who did not make it onto the hallowed turf, Jakirovic could not have created the culture he has. And without the quality of those who did play, it would not have been enough.
Chasing red shirts around Wembley's sapping pitch on what was then the hottest day of the year is about as thankless a task as you can get but Hull's cussed, cramping characters believed in Jakirovic and each other.
They believed their chance would come and they could take it. Third time lucky, and with a helping hand from Boro’s Sol Brynn, they did.
And how Middlesbrough played – all style, no substance – Hull probably believed they would not hurt them. Boro had 13 shots, yet Ivor Pandur did not have to make a save.
It took 23 minutes for Hull to have one, Brynn tipping Coyle's header over. When Ryan Giles shot over a minute later, the much-needed water break came to Boro's aid.
The Tigers did not threaten again until late in the half, twice through Belloumi, then McBurnie's header onto the bar.
But their 5-4-1 never looked like being breached by opponents who played in front of, not through it.
As cramp kicked in the second half occasionally got a little more stretched, but not so much that the Tigers' record of not having conceded in this season's play-offs was in serious threat.
And in the 95th minute, they had their moment, Coyle releasing Yu Hirakawa for a cross tipped into McBurnie's path yards out.
If Middlesbrough had just realised McBurnie was a free transfer who ticked the boxes their squad did not, maybe they would have got lucky instead.
Sacrifice a bit of philosophy for effectiveness and there is no reason why Boro chairman Steve Gibson cannot be welling up next May.
Hull City: Pandur; Coyle (McNair 90+6), Ajayi, Egan, Hughes, Giles (Drameh 75); Slater, Slater (Lundstram 90+6); Belloumi (Hirakawa 75), Millar (Gelhardt, 63); McBurnie. Unused substitutes: Phillips, Hadziahmetovic, Dowell, Koumas.
Middlesbrough: Brynn; Ayling, Fry, Malanda; Brittain, Morris, Browne (Sarmiento 90+6), Targett (Ibeh 90+6); Whittaker, McGree (Hansen 75); Strelec (Hackney 70). Unused substitutes: Gilbert, Silvera, Castledine, Edmundson, Wildsmith.
Referee: J Gillett (Merseyside).