The League Two play-offs have belonged to Danilo Orsi this season.
And by extension, they have belonged to his club Crawley Town, who booked a place in League One next season for the first time since 2014-15 by beating Crewe Alexandra 2-0 in the final at Wembley.
It was hardly a surprise when Orsi — who scored a semi-final hat-trick against MK Dons and 23 goals in the regular season — danced through the Crewe defence to prod Crawley ahead in the first half.
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The 28-year-old striker is the perfect example of the impact boss Scott Lindsey has had since joining the club in January 2023, assembling and refining a squad made of rare finds and diamonds in the rough.
As well as Orsi, signed from Grimsby Town for an undisclosed fee last summer, there were starring turns in the Wembley win for central midfielder Liam Kelly and attacker Klaidi Lolos who both joined under Lindsey’s tenure. Kelly, picked up from Rochdale last summer, was crucial in pulling the strings in central midfield and scored Crawley’s second from a tight angle to put the game to bed late in the second half.
“I’ve had a good season this year and it’s thanks to the coaches and the rest of the players,” Orsi said. “We play football like that every day, all day so I was happy to put one in the back of the net. To do it here at Wembley, with my family watching, I’m over the moon. To come in and know I’ll be playing week in, week out, as a striker you get into a bit of a rhythm. The manager and the rest of the players have given me so much confidence. Topping it off with a play-off win is just magic.”
Orsi has thrived in Lindsey’s side despite once giving up on the dream of playing football professionally. His rise from non-League, where he played part-time while working as a plumber, then via a college degree at Eastern Florida State College and in a limited role at EFL sides Harrogate Town and Grimsby Town, has seen him overcome adversity on his way to a starring role at Wembley.
“I’m pleased for Danilo,” Lindsey said. “He’s a top lad, the nicest bloke you’ll meet. He works his socks off and wants to do extra every day. You can see why he’s scored the goals he has scored. He’s played a lot of football for us, he’s been on the pitch a lot and has given a lot of opportunities to score.
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“Before we signed him we looked at his data and it was through the roof in terms of xG and touches in the box. We were big on that. A lot of managers probably wouldn’t go near a striker who has scored five goals in two seasons. A lot of people would swerve that but we looked deeper and felt there was something there that we could work on and polish.
“We have worked hard on the training ground about how he presents his body to the ball, how he meets the ball. Real detail has gone into that but he’s the one who has done it. We’ve just given him a few tips based on our experiences as coaches but he was always capable of doing that.”
With their possession-heavy football, Crawley were able to smother Crewe, who had done the league double over them earlier in the season. Goalkeeper Corey Addai, formerly of Coventry City, who signed for Crawley in 2022 from Esbjerg in Denmark, played his part with some crucial saves including when Chris Long raced through on goal in the second half. Referee Ben Toner overturned his original decision, having given a penalty when Long went down in the box but VAR showed Addai’s well-timed tackle was clean.
After a seventh-place finish in the regular season, Crawley’s momentum in the play-offs has been key, with a huge 8-1 aggregate victory over MK Dons in the semi-final, the biggest EFL play-off win and the most goals scored by a side in their first two games in the play-offs. This was Crawley’s first time playing at Wembley and, after starting 2024 in 14th, their run of 10 wins and four draws in 21 games put them on course for promotion.
All this is more remarkable on the back of last season, when Crawley finished 22nd and only just avoided a drop into non-League, a level they were promoted from in 2010-11. Back-to-back promotions then saw them reach the heights of League One the following season but being an established EFL club this high up the pyramid is a relatively new thing for a club that only reached the top tier of non-league football in 2005. The outcome at Wembley made Lindsey’s side the first since Coventry City in 2018 to earn promotion in their first ever appearance in the EFL play-offs in a season where many tipped them for relegation.
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They have a special leader in Lindsey, who steadied the ship after five managers in 10 months including short spells in charge for Kevin Betsy and Matthew Etherington in 2022-23, and has made an unserious club a serious footballing side. Only four years ago, Crawley signed TV star Mark Wright to a short-term contract while some of the gimmicks of their crypto-bro owners WAGMI United have been met with raised eyebrows. Among his biggest tasks on arrival was stamping out the habits that had led to a number of “loose professionals” in Crawley’s squad, with the manager revealing it took 28 days before all his players regularly arrived on time to training.
“There were nine players in the squad today who were playing non-League football last year, which is unbelievable,” he said. “It’s not about me, it’s about them because I’ve given them the information — and it’s a lot of information, in detail. But they have taken it on and executed it fantastically well all season.
“In order for you to get the culture right, you may have to be a bit ruthless and change personnel, which I’m fine with. It’s a key thing to management and I felt that needed to happen. I was the fifth manager that came in that season so they needed some kind of stability. But there were a lot of loose professionals in the building, a lot of people not wanting to work hard but wanting their money going into their bank account every month.
“The treatment table was full up with players, the gym was empty where they weren’t willing to do their work, the training ground was empty where they weren’t willing to do their work. The dressing rooms were empty when they should have been in because the players were late and so I thought I had a job on my hands and had to change things quickly.”
As well as raising standards, in Lindsey they have a manager determined to build a playing identity with only two League Two teams boasting a better possession percentage this season than Crawley’s 57.1 average. They also have a leader who has overcome great personal challenges after the 52-year-old cared for his wife Hayley when she had stage-four liver cancer before she passed away at the age of 44 in 2019.
“I’m not an emotional guy but I am emotional now,” Lindsey said. “It’s an unbelievable achievement. I think about my family and they know how hard I work and sometimes I fail as a partner and a dad because I don’t spend anywhere near enough time with them. They’ve been so supportive and I’d like to thank them for sticking by me. There are times where I come home and we’re sat around the dinner table and there’s nine of us because I’ve got a lot of children. They’re eating and chatting and I’m looking at a tactics board.
“It hasn’t got better than this, it’s an unbelievable achievement. I’ve been assistant manager and a coach, I’ve won at Wembley before as assistant manager and it was class. But this is different. It’s my team, my tactics, my organisation. I’m really proud. Towards the end of the game, I was talking to them (loved ones he has lost) to make sure they helped us see it through and get it over the line. I’m hopeful that they’re up there looking down and feeling proud.”
GO DEEPER
'I've changed since losing my wife to cancer. You get one go at life, one chance to make a difference'
(Top photo: Crawley celebrate at Wembley, by Paul Harding via Getty Images)
