Article #250082

For 67 minutes, Nottingham Forest were at risk of matching an unwanted record. At that point Fenerbahce were 2-0 up and full of belief that they could achieve the miracle their head coach, Domenico Tedesco, had been manifesting since their 3-0 first-leg defeat in Istanbul.

Only one team in the history of European club competitions have lost the first leg of a tie by a three-goal margin at home and advanced in the second. Up in the directors’ box, Evangelos Marinakis, more than an interested party on that occasion, presumably had flashbacks of Olympiakos suffering a 4-1 home defeat by Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Conference League two years ago, only to triumph 6-1 in Serbia in the second leg.