Nottingham Forest eliminated Midtjylland in an unusual penalty shootout

Midtjylland lost 2-1 with Nottingham Forest at the MCH Arena for the second leg of the round of 16 of the UEFA Europa League. Nicolás Domínguez and Ryan Yates scored for the sight. Martin Erlic did it for the owner of the house. The series stretched to penalties, where the homeowner couldn’t score a single one.

The English team began the game knowing that the 1-0 defeat in England forced them to win away from home to get into the top eight of the tournament, but the home team was not interested in withdrawing and dedicating themselves only to maintaining the advantage. I was going for more.

The first quarter of an hour was even in terms of possession and also in terms of scoring opportunities, which were not abundant in a highly contested match in the center of the field.

At 25′ the first big chance came and it was for Nottingham Forest. McAtee took a fantastic long pass from close to midfield and the one who surprisingly ran was Yates, who had to finish awkwardly and the ball crashed against the crossbar.

From that action onwards, the visit was a whirlwind. The holes in the local defense appeared everywhere and the only thing missing was the precision to open the scoring. The dominance was such that at 37′ of the first half the coach decided to make two changes.

Before they took place, with the players on the side of the field waiting to enter, a header from Nicolás Domínguez gave Nottingham the 1-0 lead. The Argentine had to stretch as far as possible to reach the ball, which ended up going into the referee’s upper left corner.

The Midtjylland coach stopped the changes and decided to wait until halftime. The dominance was total. 11-1 for the visit in the count of shots on goal, after 45 minutes. The first half left with a feeling that the Danish team got it cheap and could be two or three goals down on the scoreboard.

And the pace of the game remained the same at the beginning of the second half. Six minutes in, captain Ryan Yates stepped up and took a shot from just outside the area to make it 2-0.

With 20 minutes left, when the local team was already advancing in a constant and disorganized manner, Croatian Martin Erlic was caught on a rebound inside the area and broke Ortega Moreno’s goal to score a goal and, in turn, equalize the series.

The final minutes of the second half were back and forth. The impulse to tie the series was opposed to the reaction of Forest, which did not want to go to extra time and, with the changes, went in search of the third.

Neither of them could convert and the series went to overtime. At 30 seconds there was a goal for Nottingham, but Lucca was clearly in an offside position and the action was invalidated.

As the minutes passed, fatigue became the protagonist of the game. Their legs were thinking, but there was also a lot of trouble when it came to making decisions in attack. These two aspects made the work of both of their defenses much easier.

At 118′, the cramped Yates scored the header for what was an epic goal, but the VAR analyzed and the central midfielder was in an advanced position.

The penalty shootout between Midtjylland and Nottingham

The visitor kicked first and it was Gibbs-White who nailed it into the corner to make it 1-0. Cho had to respond for the local team, but his shot exploded against the right post.

Sangaré had the chance to make it 2-0 and he did so thanks to a bomb to the left corner by Olafsson, who had guessed the intention. Simsir repeated history and his shot also hit Ortega Moreno’s right post.

The series was 2-0 for the English team and Nico Williams made it 3-0 with a nice open foot shot. The series was complicated for the homeowner. If I failed, everything was over. Chilufya was in charge of taking the third penalty and he skidded just before kicking. A very unfair ending for Midtjylland, who had a great Europa League and came up empty-handed.