The Cups. In the League Cup Nottingham Forest and Luton Town reached the final. Class is class… Nottingham won 3-1. Nigel Clough scored 2 goals for his father Brian.
Luton Town had an unique chance to win a consecutive League Cup, but unable to produce a miracle. A year ago they prevailed over Arsenal, but now lost. Would have been great if they won, though…
Nottingham Forest won their first trophy since 1980 and looked like Brian Clough was going to repeat the success 10 years ago – Nottingham was back in the big game with new team.
The FA Cup was Liverpool derby. No need to motivate either team… the clash was dramatic and went into overtime. Only then Liverpool prevailed – 3-2.
A matter of winning or losing… difficult to judge. Everton lost. Only in the extra-time, but perhaps even more painfully because of that. Beating their neighbours was made even more important after English clubs were banned from UEFA for the behavior of Liverpool’s fans and thus Everton lost their chance to concur the world – at least, that was their feeling. Revenge was a must… and did not happen. And perhaps at this moment Everton started to fade without fulfilling their ambitions.
Liverpool collected one more trophy, but it was more than that – even more than prevailing over the bitter city rivals: Liverpool needed some success to overcome the Hillsborough tragedy, which happened in the FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest. In a way, winning the Cup was important – paying respects to the dead fans, telling they did not die in vain. It was going to be a big tribute – win the Cup and 6 days later win the title! A double was possible. So, they won the Cup. Then they lost the title. Up and down in 6 days and the irony in that: winning in London and losing in Liverpool – that’s football.
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