Nottingham Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo admitted Blackpool forced his side to dig deep as they scraped into the FA Cup fourth round after extra-time on Wednesday.
The Premier League side needed a Chris Wood winner in the 110th minute to prevail 3-2 after the third-tier hosts had fought back from two goals down to force an extra half-hour at a freezing Bloomfield Road.
That came after the two sides had also played out a 2-2 draw in their first encounter at the City Ground.
Nuno said: “This is the FA Cup. That’s why this competition is so special – it allows every team to play and to fight the way Blackpool did.
“We cannot take credit away from them. We had our problems but a lot of credit goes to Blackpool.
“This is the magic of the FA Cup. That’s why I love it, because it is one chance for everybody.
“It was tough, but we did the job. We could have done better and we made mistakes that allowed Blackpool to get back in the game but in extra time we showed that we deserved the victory.”
Forest had seemed in control when Andrew Omobamidele marked his belated debut with the opener and Danilo doubled the lead but the hosts hit back with an Albie Morgan stunner and header from substitute Kyle Joseph.
Omobamidele celebrated the opener by lifting a shirt bearing a message for team-mate Cheikhou Kouyate.
The Senegal international has left his team’s camp at the Africa Cup of Nations following the death of his father.
Nuno said: “We had the news before the game and it’s a shock. Our thoughts are with him and the boys did well showing his shirt because he’s a very important guy in the dressing room and on the pitch.”
Blackpool manager Neil Critchley, whose side are eighth in League One, was proud of the effort of his team.
He said: “To go all that way and not to have anything to show for it is hard to take because I thought over the course of the 120 minutes, you couldn’t really tell the difference between the two teams.
“I thought we were brilliant. I thought we went and had a real go and made it a real exciting cup tie.
“To come from 2-0 down and show spirit and with the quality of the goals as well – I’m just bitterly disappointed that we didn’t take it to penalties and make it maybe even more exciting than it already was.”
Critchley felt Jordan Lawrence-Gabriel might have had a penalty in the second half and thought Wood’s winner was “borderline offside”.
He said: “We had VAR in the first game, but we hadn’t got VAR tonight.
“We might have had a penalty, we might have had an offside decision. The integrity of the competition has to be in question.”
Bristol City Women 0-4 Man City Women: Hosts relegated as Fowler double inspires WSL leaders
Mary Fowler scored twice to set WSL leaders Manchester City on their way to a 4-0 rout of Bristol City, who suffered relegation as a result, on Sunday.
With Arsenal having drawn with Everton earlier in the day, Man City knew a victory would be enough to take the title race down to two teams.
That victory duly arrived in emphatic fashion, with all four of Man City's goals arriving in the second half.
Fowler's fantastic strike opened the scoring in the 62nd minute, with the Australia international doubling her tally soon after, paving the way for an Amy Rodgers own goal and Alex Greenwood's late header to seal a huge victory.
Arsenal are now out of the title race, with Chelsea - who have two games in hand on Gareth Taylor's team - the only side capable of catching Man City.
The Robins, meanwhile, will be playing in the second tier again next term.
Data Debrief: Bristol heading down with a whimper
Bristol City have failed to score in their last five games in the WSL, a run of 544 minutes without a goal.
They mustered just 0.09 expected goals (xG) to Man City's 3.4, with the visitors having now kept a clean sheet in nine of their 20 league games this season.
De Rossi demands more from 'tired' Roma ahead of crunch run
Daniele De Rossi acknowledged his Roma team may be tired, but he insisted they must not allow themselves to be embarrassed.
Roma fought back to draw 2-2 with last season's Serie A champions Napoli in a pulsating fixture on Sunday.
Tammy Abraham's late header secured a point for De Rossi's team, who took the lead through Paulo Dybala's penalty before going behind to goals from Matias Olivera and Victor Osimhen.
With Serie A set to have five teams in the Champions League next season, Roma occupy fifth spot with four matches remaining, but sixth-placed Atalanta are just two points behind with a game in hand.
There is also the small matter of a Europa League semi-final against Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen on the cards over the coming weeks, and De Rossi set the stall out.
"We drew, it is not a result to throw away, but it is not the result or the performance that we wanted," Roma coach Daniele De Rossi told Sky Sports Italia.
"At times you can steal the ball off Napoli, but we then gave it back again too many times. Napoli had a lot of chances in the first half, we did better in the second, but we have to do better.
"Look, we are tired, but we cannot start thinking that we’re tired and that means we can be embarrassed in the final few weeks of the season."
Roma host Leverkusen on Thursday before taking on Juventus on May 5, with a crunch clash against Atalanta – who are also into the Europa League semi-finals – set to follow after the away leg against Xabi Alonso's team.
Key to a successful end to the campaign for Roma will be keeping Dybala fit. The Argentine has been involved in the joint-most goals (12) in Serie A since the turn of the year, scoring nine and setting up three, level with Juve's Dusan Vlahovic.
PSG's latest Ligue 1 title arrives as Monaco lose to Lyon
Paris Saint-Germain have been crowned as Ligue 1 champions after Lyon overcame Monaco 3-2 on Sunday.
A 4-1 midweek win over Lorient ensured that one more victory would be enough for Luis Enrique's team to get over the line, but PSG failed to get the job done themselves when they faced relegation-threatened Le Havre on Saturday.
That game was the 700th match of the QSI era at PSG, and the club's 1,900th in France's top flight.
However, PSG's wait to win their third straight title did not last long, as less than 24 hours later, Lyon – who will face the Parisians in the final of the Coupe de France at the end of May – came out on top in a topsy turvy encounter with second-placed Monaco.
Substitute Malick Fofana was the matchwinner for Lyon, and ultimately the player who handed the title to PSG.
Wissam Ben Yedder had put Monaco ahead in the opening minute, but quickfire goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Said Benrahma turned the match on its head before half-time.
Ben Yedder netted his second to restore parity on the hour mark, and thought he had sealed his hat-trick when he volleyed in from a free-kick, only to have strayed offside.
With only a win good enough for Monaco to stay in the fight, the visitors were then caught out in the 84th minute, with Fofana racing onto Lacazette's throughball and finishing calmly.
After a dismal start to the season, relegation looked a real possibility for Lyon, but they are now, with three games remaining, still in with a shout of qualifying for Europe.
PSG on the other hand now have 12 Ligue 1 titles to their name, with 10 of those coming under QSI's ownership. Aside from the COVID-impacted 2019-20 season, five of their last six league titles have been secured before the start of May.
It also means Luis Enrique remains in the running for a treble in his first season at the club, with PSG taking on Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League semi-finals next week.
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