Daniel Farke believes Leeds United players will rise to the big occasion once more in the Championship play-offs.
Leeds United’s record on important occasions this season gives manager Daniel Farke confidence in his team’s ability to advance to the Championship playoffs.
Leeds have gone into extra time after missing out on automatic promotion due to a late-season stumbling block.
The first leg of their semi-final against Farke’s former club, Norwich City, takes place at Carrow Road on Sunday at 12 p.m., followed by the return to Elland Road on Thursday. Patrick Bamford will miss both.
The winners will compete for a spot in the Premier League next season at Wembley Stadium on May 26 – the game will begin at 3pm, the Football League revealed on Friday.
Leeds has never won the play-offs, but those failures occurred with a nearly entirely different collection of players and coaching staff. More important, in Farke’s opinion, is their ability this season to perform at their best in what he refers to as “spotlight games”.
“It’s always felt throughout the season that when there was a special occasion, we were there,” said Farke, whose team finished what had been an excellent regular season with two wins in their final eight games.
“We played twice against Leicester and won both occasions; we also won twice against Ipswich.