Ephron Mason-Clark takes a superb first contact to get the ball below management earlier than slotting residence from shut vary.
Just 16 minutes later, Brandon Thomas-Asante supplies an ideal glancing header to steer previous the keeper from six yards out and wheels away in celebration.
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But this isn’t two of Coventry City’s star forwards scoring objectives in a Championship sport within the 2025-26 season on the best way to promotion to the Premier League.
This is 2 younger prospects netting in non-league soccer on precisely the identical day in March 2019.
With simply 500 spectators watching on, a 20-year-old Thomas-Asante scored for Oxford City in a 5-3 defeat by Hampton & Richmond Borough in National League South.
Mason-Clark, aged 19 on the time, was on the scoresheet for Barnet in a 2-1 loss to Gateshead within the National League with just a little greater than 650 supporters in attendance.
Fast ahead seven years and the duo contributed 36 objectives between them within the Championship to assist fireplace the Sky Blues again into the highest flight for the primary time in 25 years.
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‘A decade-long journey’
“Wow, what a moment,” Thomas-Asante told BBC CWR after Coventry lifted the Championship trophy following a 3-1 win over Wrexham within the penultimate sport of the season.
“Moments like this, they’re not out of nowhere. They’re built up over years and decades. It’s a journey.”
And what a journey it has been for the 27-year-old who has grafted his means to the highest flight after 10 seasons as a senior skilled.
From beginning his profession within the MK Dons academy in 2011 to breaking into the primary group in League One in 2016, Thomas-Asante went on to play for Sutton United and Ebbsfleet United within the National League and Salford City in League Two, in addition to Oxford City.
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When he signed for West Bromwich Albion in the summertime of 2022, Thomas-Asante accomplished the set of enjoying in all three EFL divisions.
And now, two years after making the change to the Sky Blues, he might be ready to add the most important league of the lot to his CV.
‘Mason-Clark is changing into inevitable’
Ephron Mason-Clark registered extra assists (9) than every other Coventry participant this season [PA Media]
For Mason-Clark, 26, issues received below means within the seventh tier in 2016 with a short mortgage spell within the Isthmian League Premier Division at Metropolitan Police, one month after making his Barnet debut in League Two.
He would go on to play for the Bees for six years, predominantly within the National League, earlier than becoming a member of Peterborough United in League One in 2022 after which Coventry in 2024.
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“We’ve got a running joke,” Thomas-Asante mentioned. “We say we’ve got our jumpers at home – anyone who’s played National League will know as everyone wears the same jacket before a game.
“So I stored that as a result of I by no means need to neglect the powerful instances. But I additionally don’t need to downplay the National League as a result of as we noticed with York and Rochdale, the usual is unreal.
“It gets downplayed and it’s not a joke, so to see that, see League Two, League One, the Championship and, god-willing, soon the Premier League is special.”
Given the same path each Thomas-Asante and Mason-Clark have trodden, it was maybe considerably poetic that they each discovered the web within the last residence sport of the marketing campaign for Coventry.
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They additionally mixed for the opener on that day of celebration with Mason-Clark establishing Thomas-Asante, who was waxing lyrical about his team-mate afterwards.
“I’m a fan of football before I’m a player and the player he has become, he is just unreal,” Thomas-Asante mentioned.
“Even to watch from the other side of the pitch, I had to remember to get in at the back stick.
“He at all times provides to his sport, he is simply changing into inevitable. No one can actually cease him.”
EFL knowledgeable George Elek described Mason-Clark as “one of many unsung heroes of the Championship this season”.
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“He’s somebody who supplies a lot high quality off that left hand facet,” Elek told the Not The Top 20 podcast.
“He is one other certainly one of these gamers Coventry signed two years in the past. He had a good first season however they’ve simply retained the religion in him, given him a number of minutes, given him time to develop.
“I’m excited to see him in the Premier League next season.”
Thomas-Asante ended the season with 13 objectives and 4 assists, whereas Mason-Clark scored 10 objectives and registered 9 assists.
Only Haji Wright (18) contributed to extra objectives than Thomas-Asante (17), whereas Mason-Clark led the best way with 19.
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Mason-Clark’s output has come as no shock to Thomas-Asante, who recalled recognising his expertise when lining up towards him as a youth participant.
He mentioned: “It’s funny because when I first joined, he was one of the players where I saw him and I thought, ‘I played against him a lot at academy level, I know he gave some of my mates a tough time’.
“So I simply wished to play with him. And 1780386531 seeing nobody within the nation having the ability to cope with it’s simply a tremendous sight.”
Mason-Clark was rewarded for his fantastic type with an international debut for Jamaica in March.
Meanwhile, the dream season won’t be over simply but for Thomas-Asante, who may have a World Cup marketing campaign with Ghana to go alongside his Championship winners’ medal after being named in the preliminary squad.
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“I’m actually keen to maintain my head down, to maintain prepared, as a result of I’m so captivated with my nation,” he added.
From enjoying to crowds of fewer than 300 folks on events seven years in the past, Thomas-Asante may very well be that includes in entrance of 70,000 followers on the largest match in world soccer, towards England within the group levels no much less.