Well, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. For Nottingham Forest, this was anything but the meek surrender widely feared, Vítor Pereira’s side advancing to the Europa League quarter-finals after triumphing 3-0 on penalties at Midtjylland, who missed all three spot-kicks. The goalkeeper Elias Ólafsson had celebrated his captain, Mads Bech Sørensen, winning the toss to decide that penalties would be taken in front of the hosts’ most ardent supporters, but it counted for nothing and ultimately Midtjylland, who lost 2-1 on the night, were punished for being lulled into a false sense of security.
Forest stunned the Danish side by earning a 2-0 lead on the night, Nicolás Domínguez’s early header followed by the captain Ryan Yates’s superb strike from distance, before Martin Erlic’s goal sent the game to extra time. After 127 minutes, perfect spot-kicks by the substitutes Morgan Gibbs-White, who entered just after the hour, Ibrahim Sangaré and Neco Williams reignited Evangelos Marinakis’s hopes of Forest achieving European glory. For now, Forest can fret about Sunday’s trip to Tottenham on Friday afternoon’s flight back to East Midlands airport.
Pereira revamped things, as promised, with Nikola Milenkovic and Domínguez, who combined when the latter opened the scoring approaching the interval, the only players to keep their place from Sunday’s frustrating draw at home to Fulham. “I did what I must do,” the Portuguese said and, at that point, the hundreds in the away end could be forgiven for thinking they would exit with a whimper. Saying that, Forest’s starting XI comprised four players who joined at a combined cost of about £140m, plus the January arrival Lorenzo Lucca, who joined with a £31m permanent option.
