Cardiff City host Wrexham at Cardiff City Stadium on Monday night, closing the opening weekend of the Championship season with the clubs' first league meeting in 24 years. The last one was at Ninian Park in March 2002, when Scott Young, Peter Thorne and Danny Gabbidon won it 3-2 for Cardiff.
They arrive from opposite directions. Cardiff finished bottom of the Championship in 2024-25 on 44 points, went down, and have come back at the first attempt. Wrexham, promoted from League One that same season, adapted to the second tier well enough to finish seventh on 71 points, two behind Hull City, who took the last play-off place on the final day and went on to win promotion to the Premier League.
The two have met once in the meantime, and Cardiff won it: 2-1 at the Racecourse Ground in the fourth round of the EFL Cup last October. Neither side arrives in much form. Cardiff beat Swindon Town 3-2 at home in the League Cup on 8 August; Wrexham lost 1-0 at Middlesbrough the day before.
Cardiff have been widely tipped to struggle, and their head coach has heard it. "We saw a lot of predictions this week which put us in the bottom two or bottom three, so we're under no illusions about how difficult the season is going to be," Brian Barry-Murphy said. "But the size of the challenge improves the size of our excitement." He believes his side can surprise people, and points to a division most of its clubs are entering blind: "I think one of the beauties of this season is that, for a lot of us, we're going into the unknown."