The idea that one day John Giles and Peter Lorimer would enable me to see the biggest match Leeds have played for more than a decade (it's bigger than the 2000 Champions league semi-final by some distance) wouldn't have fazed my six-year-old self at all. In those days, Giles and Lorimer, and all the others on that great team, seemed capable of anything. When I'm sitting in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff this afternoon with my brother, a nightmare search for tickets having come to a happy end, I will no doubt reflect on the fact that that notion is still true.

I won't bore you with the details of the endless search for tickets, and all the possible sources I tapped and plundered, or the mad dash to Dublin Airport on Friday morning to collect the precious cargo from Giles, who had brought them with them from Leeds where Lorimer is now a director. But the difficulty in securing them does speak eloquently of how Leeds United, despite all the madness and near liquidation of the last few years, is still a huge club, with massive support. Attendances have been low this season, due mainly to the decision by chairman Ken Bates (whom we love really) to charge Premiership prices to watch Championship football. But now with the scent of a relatively quick return to the top flight (when ticket prices will no doubt rise again), Leeds fans believe they are going to get their old club back. And they want to be there to witness history, to embrace destiny.

Which is where the trouble might begin. In no other club in England, or the rest of Europe for that matter, is there such a disconnect between expectation and success. There have been three league championships to celebrate over the years, but many more defeats have reduced most Leeds United fans to nervous, pessimistic wrecks before big occasions.

The club is not very good at getting to finals and spectacularly bad once it gets there.

After they lost that replay in 1970, Leeds did get to another FA Cup final in 1972, which they won. Then came defeat against Sunderland in the 1973 FA Cup final, defeat against AC Milan in the European Cup Winners' Cup final a few weeks later, defeat against Bayern Munich in the 1975 European Cup final (we were robbed, and wrecked the stadium in protest), defeat against Charlton in the 1987 Second Division play-off final and defeat against Aston Villa in the League Cup final in 1996.

If I was a Watford fan, I'd be rubbing my hands at the prospect of playing a club whose history creates desperation, not inspiration.

And yet. . . And yet Leeds haven't won a final for 34 years, so surely it is time. After everything that has happened in recent years, after the enormous effort that has gone into surviving financial meltdown, and with the club's fortunes having turned around more quickly than we could ever have expected, surely it is okay to expect a success, if not to predict one. If there is any justice, do Leeds United fans, who have suffered like few others in recent years, not deserve a victory? Do they not deserve a chance to sing and celebrate, like Liverpool fans sang and celebrated last Saturday, as Barcelona supporters did on Wednesday?

I'm starting to sound a bit plaintive now, but a tendency to make melancholy appeals to the gods of Fairness and Justice is part of the DNA of being a Leeds United fan. So is a belief in destiny, or at least in the very Catholic notion that if we suffer long enough, we will get our reward, if not in heaven, then, at least, in the Millennium Stadium. So if the gods of Fairness and Justice are listening, and I know they hardly ever do, I have this message: don't be taking credit for the tickets . . . that was Giles and Lorimer; just give us the victory all Leeds United fans crave. We promise we'll never ask for anything again.

Diarmuid Doyle is Deputy Editor of the Sunday Tribune and a lifelong Leeds United fan CHAMPIONSHIP PLAY-OFF FINAL LEEDS UNITED v WATFORD Millennium Stadium, 3.00 Live, Sky Sports 1, 2.00