It's been a fairytale story for two clubs who now sit on the brink of reaching the Premier League, but who will go home happy when Coventry City face Luton Town in the EFL Championship playoff final at Wembley Stadium this weekend?
Coventry City fans have really been through the wringer. From dropping out of the Premier League, where they last appeared in 2001, all the way to the fourth tier League Two, to almost going out of business, and being forced out of their own stadium, there's not been a lot for the Midlands club to cheer about.
It's been a nightmarish ride for the Sky Blues, who were one of the founder members of the Premier League and a mainstay for the first nine seasons of the competition's history, before relegation to the Championship began a downward spiral of financial and sporting disaster.
After more than 20 years of heartache, the man who took over the responsibility of leading the players on the pitch in 2017, former Manchester United star Mark Robins, has led his team to two promotions in six years and is now on the brink of making it three and bringing top flight football back to the city of Coventry.
If you think that's a fairytale, wait until you hear about their opponents Luton Town. As recently as 2014, the club was playing non-league football in what is now known as the Vanarama National League, but that is not where this historic club belongs.
It's complicated. In fact, Luton were mainstays in the old Division One, the former top flight of English football, for many years. However, in the final season before the advent of the Premier League, Luton finished bottom of Division One and were therefore deprived of a place in the new, lucrative competition and condemned to remain in Division One, which would now become the second tier of the English pyramid.
After that they spent two decades moving between the three Football League divisions, until in 2010 the unthinkable happened and they were relegated out of the Football League and into the then Conference Premier, now National League, where they stayed for four seasons.
During the last decade, they have made a remarkable climb from non-league football to being on the precipice of joining arguably the biggest domestic football league on the planet.
Luton Town's Kenilworth Road ground is famous for being so old school, so quaint, that fans have to walk through passageways connected to local residents' gardens in order to gain access to the stands. Reports have suggested the club will need to spend £10m renovating the stadium to meet Premier League standards if they win promotion this weekend.
You just couldn't write it.
So, two teams with remarkable backstories meet in what is set to be an emotional day for both sides in London this Saturday.
Coventry got this far by finishing 5th in the Championship this season, before winning a gritty playoff semi final 1-0 on aggregate against Middlesbrough. The two clean sheets they kept in those games were inkeeping with their overall form this season, in which they finished with the third best defensive record in the league.
Including those playoff games, Coventry have kept five clean sheets in their last nine Championship games. A combination of outstanding defensive solidity and organisational awareness, fostered by Robins, and the magic boot of their Sweden international striker Viktor Gyökeres, who sits as the second highest scorer in the league with 21 goals, has brought the Sky Blues this far. Their fans will hope it can take them one step further and into the Premier League.
However, in defensive top trumps, Luton Town actually come out on top as they recorded the joint-second best defensive record across the Championship season, finishing 3rd in the table in the process. Their top striker Carlton Morris has himself scored 21 goals and will also be a key threat in this game.
Coach Rob Edwards has done an outstanding job since taking over from the departing Nathan Jones in November.
When he took the giant leap from leading Forest Green Rovers to the League Two title to taking over at Watford at the start of the season, many thought it would be a bridge too far, and it proved to be just that as he was sacked one month into the campaign.
But Edwards bounced back and took over Luton shortly after, and the rest as they say is history. He built on the foundations set down by Jones and in many ways improved an already great team.
It should prove an interesting battle between two coaches with very different styles and stories. The old lion with decades of experience throughout the league pyramid against the young upstart who pulled up trees in League Two but still has it all to prove at a higher level. Which of them will be managing a Premier League club next season?
Fortunately, neither side will be impacted by any absences due to injury or suspension and so both managers will have full strength squads to call upon for this momentous occasion.
Fans in the UK can watch this game on TV and via live streaming on Sky Sports.
Expert Insight: This should be extremely cagey. Neither side gives up a goal easily at the best of times, and with all the pressure in the world on them, both coaches and both sets of players will surely proceed with caution. This has all the hallmarks of a low-scoring affair which could be decided by an unfortunate defensive error, or may even go to extra time and even penalties, with the teams so evenly-matched, and so determined not to give an inch to their opponents.
Championship