Even as modern life takes over, history is everything in the FA Cup. The competition’s newfound disdain for replays allowed Nottingham Forest to become the first team to win three consecutive FA Cup penalty shootouts. History was made, novelty was witnessed, but in a setting that emphasised the traditions of the grand old Cup.
After Exeter and Ipswich, fell Brighton, and so Forest matched the feat of the Moroccan army side FAR Rabat, who beat MC Oujda, Wydad Casablanca and Rachad Bernoussi on penalties in successive rounds to win the Coupe du Trone in 2007. It was a game characterised by caution, reflecting both Forest’s habitual preference for a low block and Brighton’s wariness after losing 7-0 to Forest last month . But it also perhaps reflected how much both sides cared, a welcome, if retro, feature of the latter stages of the FA Cup this season.
Related: Nuno applauds Nottingham Forest after reaching Wembley FA Cup semi Defeat would have meant the loss of an opportunity that neither side could take lightly. Of the four sides involved in the first two quarter-finals, only one had won the FA Cup: Forest, who last won the Cup in 1959 when their opening goal was scored by Roy Dwight, Elton John’s cousin. This will be their first semi-final since 1991, when they beat West Ham.
Brighton may have been in two semis in the past six years, but there is no sense of them being sated. Success both for them and Forest remains an improbable dream; each step further up the mount.
