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published april 17th 2026 contact us match reports (1) match reports (2)
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EUROPA LEAGUE quarters (home) April 16th 2026
Nottingham Forest 1 (2)
MGW 12 Porto 0 (1)
BLOOD, TOIL, TEARS AND SWEAT
Blood - After only six or seven minutes, Jan Bednarek homed in on Chris Wood's knee with a view to separating it from the rest of Chris Wood's leg. The ref saw little wrong with this until VAR convinced him that he had missed an obvious example of attempted murder. He was sent off, and four minutes later MGW did his magic deflection trick and put Forest ahead. We spent the rest of the evening rehearsing phrases like "career ending injury" and arguing about Wood's "previous knee", but failing to reach a conclusion. Thankfully, that nice Mister Pereira assured us that he was okay.
Toil - It turned out to be an evening of toil, as Forest's wingers and forwards once again buggered up promising moves with a panache which was kind of admirable in its own way. The fact that Forest fought through to their first European semi final in 40-odd years should be weighed against the outcome of another grinding performance which may hamper their Premier League struggles.
Tears - The tears were for Ando, as almost shed by MGW in his interview.
Sweat - The sweating started in earnest in the second half, when it became clear that Forest were doing their best to take the match to extra time and penalties. A local scientist calculated that a total of 60,000 litres of bodily fluids had been exuded by the end of the match.
Finally, a reminder that blood, toil, tears and sweat weren't the only thing Forest offered. There's that bit about fighting on and never surrendering too. It's going to be tough, but if anybody can struggle their way to some kind of hard-fought success this season, Forest can.
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