{"id":429380,"date":"2026-05-02T22:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T22:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/429380\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T22:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T22:29:10","slug":"championship-play-off-race-how-hull-came-out-on-top-of-their-shootout-with-wrexham-and-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/429380\/","title":{"rendered":"Championship play-off race: How Hull came out on top of their shootout with Wrexham and Derby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hull boss Sergej Jakirovic told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sounds\/play\/live\/bbc_radio_humberside\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BBC Radio Humberside<\/a> after the matches were over that the the topsy-turvy football that had unfolded would have been &#8220;excellent for you all in the media&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;For me, it was a new experience,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve never been part of a game, where three teams can reach the play-offs [on the final day]. I learned something new, that you have to be calm and believe in your team.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But for all three sides, battling it out for a Championship play-off place in the 46th game of the campaign was proof of incredible progress made by each.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Just 12 months ago, Hull were a side fighting for survival on the final day of the 2024-25 season. After that, the club was put under a transfer embargo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And it is with players picked up on free transfers and on loan that Jakirovic has moulded a side that is now challenging for a place back in the top flight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m very proud of everyone at the club, from the groundsman, to our security and those in the kitchen &#8211; all those people around us have made it a good environment to work in, where we are very happy and come into the training ground with a smile on our face every morning,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s like a puzzle. Every man is very important in our environment to make sure that we stay positive, optimistic and that we are together when we are losing or winning. And that was the main thing all season.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hull boss Sergej Jakirovic told BBC Radio Humberside after the matches were over that the the topsy-turvy football&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-429380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}