Mark Robins saluted his Coventry players for clinching a “phenomenal” play-off place in the Sky Bet Championship before then challenging them to finish off the promotion charge.
The Sky Blues, who were relegated from the Premier League in 2001, secured fifth spot by earning a point at fourth-placed Middlesbrough.
The two will now meet again over two legs. The first will be on Sunday, May 14 at the Coventry Building Society Arena before they return to the Riverside for the second leg on Wednesday, May 17 for the right to face either Luton or Sunderland at Wembley.
Robins said: “I’m proud of everyone when you consider the start of the season we had, Middlesbrough were similar, near the bottom of the league, albeit different circumstances.
“It took us a while to get going, but the achievement just to get into the play-offs is phenomenal. The only way to enjoy them is to win them.
“Big teams have missed out. I only heard the scoreline from The Den, I knew what Sunderland were doing and then what Millwall were doing, so we had to stay in the game and it has worked out. The supporters have been right behind us all season. It’s fantastic.
“We have them now Sunday and Wednesday, it’s a really interesting situation.
“We have a few days to think about plans, the way we want to go about it. They are not daft here, Michael Carrick is very talented and they have a lot more to come, they are smart. We have to enjoy it, and enjoy the build up.
“We started really brightly. The only thing that blotted the copybook was near half-time when we switched off.”
Coventry, who needed to avoid defeat to stay in the play-off zone, secured the lead in the 22nd minute through Gustavo Hamer’s clinical strike into the bottom corner.
But in stoppage-time at the end of the first half Cameron Archer hit his 11th of the season from close range to level things up.
Despite Sunderland’s win at Preston, Millwall ended up losing a dramatic tussle with Blackburn 4-3, leaving Coventry’s fans celebrating at a sell-out Riverside.
After he was asked where securing a play-off spot ranked, Middlesbrough manager Michael Carrick said: “It is not an achievement, it’s about what is next – all eyes are on what happens after that.”
He added: “We have really worked hard in terms of preparing the right way, keeping our edge because performances matter, but we knew our fate a couple of weeks ago and where we would be.
“It is different now in the play-offs, naturally there is a different feeling about it. There will be a different kind of atmosphere in the two stadiums, you have to relish it because you are fighting for something that is worth achieving.
“Coventry are a really good team, well-organised and they play good football. They are a threat going forward.
“The longer this game went on we dealt with it but they are a threat, and you would expect that given the run they have been on – just as you’d expect from all the teams in the play-offs.
“Generally I was quite pleased with what we got from the day. We wanted to win the game, but all in all it was a good performance, and everyone came through it pretty well.”
Real Madrid 0-4 Barcelona: Guijarro brace sets visitors up for Clasico glory
Patri Guijarro's first-half brace set Barcelona on their way to a thumping 4-0 win over rivals Real Madrid in Liga F on Saturday.
Claudia Pina and Alexia Putellas were also on target as Barcelona continued their perfect start to the season, extending their lead at the top of the table.
The visitors dominated from the off, as Guijarro broke the deadlock inside the fourth minute, tapping in from Putellas' flick-on from a corner.
Cata Coll was forced into a big save to deny Alba Redondo an equaliser shortly after, but Madrid's hope was soon dented as Guijarro picked out the bottom corner with a superb long-range strike for her second.
Pina strengthened their lead six minutes before the break, clinically slotting past Misa with her low strike.
Putellas added some more gloss to the scoreline with four minutes remaining of normal time, beating the Madrid keeper with a lovely dink to bring up her 199th goal for the club.
Barcelona have won all 10 of their games, and now sit eight points clear of Madrid, who suffered their first league defeat of the campaign.
Data Debrief: Total dominance
Madrid will have felt fairly confident coming into this game after a strong start to their season, but they once again failed to find a way past their Clasico rival.
Los Blancos have lost every single game they have played against Barcelona in all competitions, with this their 15th such meeting.
Barcelona smothered their attack early on, restricting their hosts to just one shot in the first half, while they had 10.
Indonesia 0-4 Japan: Visitors stay unbeaten with rout
Japan continued their unbeaten start to World Cup qualifying with a 4-0 victory over Indonesia on Friday.
Two goals from the visitors in either half were enough to seal the three points and get them back to winning ways after a stalemate with Australia last time out.
Ragnar Oratmangoen should have put Indonesia ahead, but he hesitated one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and Japan did not look back after that. They got a bit of fortune with their first goal, Justin Hubner deflecting a cross into his own net in the 35th minute.
Takumi Minamino got their second just before the break, finishing off a pacy counter-attack by darting onto the end of Kaoru Mitoma’s cross to sweep it past Maarten Paes.
While there was not much the goalkeeper could do with that one, he was at fault for the third as he gifted the ball to Hidemasa Morita, who coolly picked out the bottom corner just after the break.
Yukinari Sugawara came off the bench to round off the scoring in the 69th minute. He raced down the right wing and instead of looking to his options, he rifled it in from a tight angle at the near post.
Japan are up to 13 points after five games, sitting top of Group C, while Indonesia are bottom, still in search of their first win.
Data Debrief: Clinically done
For a team still chasing their first win, Japan are probably not high on the list of opponents they would want to face, and Indonesia were undone by their visitors.
Hajime Moriyasu's side created 0.79 expected goals (xG) to Indonesia's 0.72, while they only had four more shots than their hosts (12 compared to eight).
Japan took their chances, and though the win margin may look harsh, they were deserving of the three points, having dominated throughout the game.
Jamaica 0-1 United States: Pepi give visitors advantage in Nations League quarter-final
Ricardo Pepi's first-half strike gave the United States a 1-0 advantage over Jamaica after the first leg of their Concacaf Nations League quarter-final.
The hosts saw a penalty saved in the first half before their frustrations were compounded late on thanks to Mason Holgate's red card.
The USA had the lead just five minutes in – having smothered a Jamaica attack at one end, the visitors caught them out with a pacy counter-attack, with Pepi sweeping it into the back of the net.
Shortly after, Shamar Nicholson was brought down by Matt Turner when he tried to take it around him, but the goalkeeper made amends, diving low to his right to deny Demarai Gray from 12 yards.
In the second half, Holgate was denied a tap-in by Yunus Musah before Turner scrambled to stop Leon Bailey's corner from nestling into the net as Jamaica searched for an equaliser.
With 86 minutes on the clock, Holgate received a second yellow card in just over 10 minutes for dragging Brandon Vazquez back, meaning he will miss the return leg in Missouri on Monday.
Data Debrief: Hitting the mark
Pepi got the all-important goal on Thursday, and is the fourth player to score 12 goals for the USA before turning 22 years old, joining Landon Donovan, Jozy Altidore and Christian Pulisic.
But it was perhaps Turner who actually had the most vital interventions; he has now saved three of the eight penalties he's faced for the USA, including two against Jamaica.
Mauricio Pochettino also could not have asked for a better result from his first competitive game in charge of the Stars and Stripes as he became just the third full-time manager to win his first competitive away match, joining Bob Bradley (2008) and Steve Sampson (1996).
SportsMax is the Caribbean sports channel of choice, committed to providing sporting content of the highest quality to the Caribbean, delivered by a team of highly innovative, passionate and qualified professionals.
(876) 619-7629
digitalmedia@sportsmax.tv
