leeds fansWith Wigan, Reading and QPR relegated from the Premier League, the League One and Championship play-off finals will finalise Leeds United’s 2013/14 schedule.

The first of those two play-off finals will take place today as Brentford and Yeovil Town face-off at Wembley, both teams hoping to secure a place in the Championship. Unibet have Brenford as favourites for this one, but from a Leeds United perspective, Yeovil Town could be the preferred victors.

It’ll come as no surprise to hear that The Whites have a good record over both teams. Our last defeat against Brentford came in a 1953 FA Cup match, while Yeovil Town have never beaten us – a stat which could provide a slight psychological edge should Yeovil be our opponents next season.

Leeds and Yeovil Town had never faced each other before Leeds were relegated to League One in 2007. In the three seasons that followed, www.FootballScores.com shows that we played Yeovil six times, winning five of those fixtures and drawing the other.

Preferred winners of the Championship play-off final is a tougher one to call. Once again, Leeds United have the better record against both teams, but Watford recorded a humiliating 6-1 win over us this season and ghosts of the 2006 play-off final still give us nightmares.

Crystal Palace meanwhile have only beaten Leeds once in their last eight attempts and our record against them throughout history is vastly superior.

The sensible choice would therefore be Watford to go up. But our victory over them on the final day of last season, an ultimately meaningless match for Leeds, but one which would have sent Watford up had they beaten us, was seen as revenge for both the 6-1 hammering we took earlier in the season and the 2006 play-off final.

If Watford were to succeed at securing promotion via the play-offs a couple of tricky encounters would be removed from our fixture list, but it’d also mean Leeds United didn’t succeed in ruining Watford’s promotion party.

It’s quite a petty reason to back Crystal Palace for promotion, but half the fun of football is getting one over on other teams. Had Leeds succeeded in the 2006 play-off final, League One would never have happened, we’d probably be moaning about the “lack of ambition” we were showing in the Premier League by failing to sign £30m strikers and pushing for a Champions League finish (well, maybe not…)

Leeds United know better than most how big play-off finals are. No one could have predicted how bad things were about to get when we failed to secure promotion in 2006. Defeating Watford on the final day of this season was our chance to return the favour. Let’s hope Crystal Palace finish the job.