With an away win at Portsmouth, Forest crossed another hurdle, and relegation side Portsmouth did not cause much trouble for Forest.

Next, Donn shifted his focus away from the league and the Champions Cup.

In the semi-finals, Nottingham Forest's opponent was Ligue 1 overlord Lyon.

Although it has always been the champion of the Ligue 1 domestic league, it deserves to be the hegemon. However, this team is considered to be the weakest of the Champions League semi-finals. Their strength is really not on the same level as Nottingham Forest, and there is also an element of luck in being able to reach the semi-finals of the Champions Cup this time.

The direct consequence of Lyon's dominance in Ligue 1 is the lack of competitiveness of Ligue 1 teams in Europe - if a league is not competitive, how good can the team be produced?

The media unanimously favored Forest to reach the final, and the English media even gave Nottingham Forest a ticket to the final directly before the game. They've already started to introduce readers to the finals venue.

People in English football are also optimistic about Forest, and some people still feel that they don't have to play Lyon with all their strength, and Donn should stay up to deal with opponents in the league.

Still, Don didn't dare to take it lightly. On the contrary, it is precisely because of the hype of these media that he is even more worried - he is afraid that his team will be influenced by those public opinions, and he will be proud of the enemy.

For this reason, he had a gloomy face all day long, as if he was worried that his team would be eliminated, and when he was interviewed, he also changed his style of arrogance and self-defeating, and seemed cautious, never mentioning such words as "advancing to the final" and "booking Bernabeu tickets in advance".

His behavior is strange, and they all wonder if Don has been kidnapped by aliens, so he has changed his mind......

“…… Against a team like Arsenal, he dared to say before the game that he wanted to win. Facing the weakest team in the top four, he didn't dare to mention the final...... Maybe it's a deliberate attempt to confuse the opponent? ”

Don doesn't care what the outside media thinks of what he does, as long as the team doesn't take it lightly and doesn't take it proudly.

Under the influence of him and Wood, the team as a whole has not shown signs of underestimation. Donn asked the team to play Lyon with the attitude they would expect against a semi-final opponent. Wood trains hard to set an example. Donn's dressing room prestige is high, George. The power of Wood's example should not be overlooked. Before the match against Lyon, Don had nothing to worry about.

The first leg will go to the away side first.

This is the first time in the history of the Lyon club that they have reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, and they even have hopes of reaching the final and lifting the trophy. So Lyon's morale was even stronger, and then home advantage, they launched wave after wave of attacks into the heart of the Forest team, like a storm crashing on the shore, making the hearts of Nottingham Forest fans beat wildly.

Donn allowed his team to defend on the road because he calculated that Lyon had a lot of momentum at home. The art of war says that it is necessary to "avoid its edge", Don will not be stupid enough to go out and fight Lyon, and if he can get a point in this game, it will be a victory. It would be better if there were still goals.

Lyon's idea is simple, to use home advantage to attack Forest, try to score, fight for the lead, and finally win this game to lay the foundation for the next leg. After all, Forest's home stadium is difficult to play, and if a win is in hand, maybe there is more room for manoeuvre. Either way, Lyon is tired of being the domestic hegemon, and they want to make a breakthrough in history - to be the European champion.

But Nottingham Forest clearly have more experience in the semi-finals of the Champions League than Lyon. Don was very old-fashioned, while Leon, on the other hand, was too impatient. What if you attack at the beginning and don't score? What should I do if I am physically exhausted?

Don let the team hold steady, slowly grinding with Lyon, grinding down Lyon's fighting spirit, confidence and fitness. The Lyon players were overly excited, running all over the field, and the field was really good-looking, and the fans who couldn't understand it could also follow suit, thinking that Lyon had the absolute upper hand and that it was only a matter of time before they scored.

But in the eyes of professionals, this is not the case at all.

The match was held in France, and Arsene Wenger, who had already been eliminated, accepted an invitation from a French television station to comment on the game live. When he saw Nottingham Forest being beaten by Lyon and unable to get out of the box, he asserted that if Lyon continued to attack like this, they must be the ones who were unlucky in the end.

The French commentator was also a little skeptical, believing that judging from the situation on the field, it was only a matter of time before Lyon broke through the Forest goal - "This is a passive defense, no matter how tight the defense is, if you let the opponent besiege it, there will definitely be loopholes." I don't believe Nottingham Forest's defence is flawless, and it's the Forest team that is under pressure, not Lyon......"

Arsene Wenger just smiled and didn't speak. He can't argue with the commentators during the live broadcast, but he can't agree with the commentators either, so he can only wait for time to tell them who is right and who is wrong.

In the first 30 minutes of the first half, almost all of them were Lyon besieging Nottingham Forest, and the Forest team only had two shots on goal, while Lyon had six shots, and the number of times they scored in the 30-meter area was also Lyon's lead. The Lyon fans sang and danced in the stands, in a happy and relaxed mood. They seem to have come to think that Nottingham Forest is nothing more than that, nothing to fear.

Lyon's backline is getting higher and higher, and the centre-backs are eager to dribble into the opposition penalty area to shoot.

Just when everyone thought that Lyon would be able to break the Nottingham Forest goal in their next attack, Forest counter-attacked.

The spring, which seemed to be compressed to the extreme, bounced up violently with a slight lightness of pressure on it, and the sharp thorn at the tip glistened in the night light.

Akinfeev threw the ball directly to attack, and Shaheen broke through with the ball and quickly split the ball. Abang Lajo, who started at right midfield, used his speed to force a breakthrough, and instead of continuing to dribble the ball on the flank, as the Lyon players thought, he suddenly cut inside and rushed straight towards the goal. He's going to shoot straight at goal!

Abonlaho was too fast, and Lyon's players were ill-prepared for Forest's counter-attack, and when Abang Lajo cut in, he had only one goalkeeper in front of him.

The rest can be thought of on your knees.

Abonlaho burst into the box and just as he was about to shoot, he was tackled from the side by a defender who drove back. Although Abang Laho's fall was a bit exaggerated, the opponent did foul. The referee made a quick decision and blew a penalty to Forest, and not only that, but he also gave a yellow card to the fouling player.

Don En off the field is still unrelenting, thinking that it is too light to only give a yellow card, at least he should be sent off with a red card!

His protest "earned" him a lot of boos from the stands.

Lyon's players were unprepared for the penalty and after a moment of stunnedness, they gathered around the referee to ask for an explanation. They thought it was Abang Laho fake fall.

On the other side, Abang Laho was high-fived and hugged his teammates one by one in celebration. He did deliberately earn the penalty, otherwise with his speed it would not have been tackled from behind, he just had to push the ball out and accelerate to avoid it. However, in doing so, he also lost the best angle and timing to shoot. In this case, it is clear that a penalty is the most reasonable thing to do. So he dragged a leg behind, just waited for the opponent to shovel over, and then fell down, and the penalty was in hand.

The person in charge of taking the penalty was Shaheen. He struck the ball into the goal, the goalkeeper misjudged the direction and he pounced only to find that the ball had fallen from the middle of the field to where he had been standing.

Seeing the Forest team score, the commentator of the French TV station was silent for a while, and Wenger kept his smile as always, so that others could not see his pride.

In the end, the commentator found himself a step down: "This penalty was a bit controversial, but the referee insisted on his decision...... Forest were lucky to lead away from home......"

Wenger said: How is this lucky? You haven't watched a Premier League game, Mr. Commentator. This is one of Tony's most common tricks. You think he was beaten passively, but in fact he was not hit to the point...... He's just waiting for the right opportunity to counter-attack. If I were the coach of Lyon and I saw the Forest playing like that, I would tell the defenders to pay attention to the defense and then pull back into formation and bring them back out.

Unfortunately, Lyon's head coach lacked the experience to play against Donne, nor did he have the experience to play in the semi-finals of the Champions League, which was completely exploited by Donn.

The leading Forest team played with more ease. Lyon continued to attack, while Forest stepped up their counter-attacks. They came close to scoring another goal before the break.

At half-time, Arsene Wenger chatted with the commentator about the game, and in the second half, Wenger said that if they gave Nottingham Forest the lead in such a knockout game, the second half would have been difficult for Lyon. This time, the commentator finally agreed with Arsene Wenger, after all, the coach knows Donn better than he does.

The second half of the game went exactly as Wenger said, and Done still used the defensive counter-attack to lead Lyon by the nose.

Lyon were desperate for an equaliser, which gave Forest more chances to counter-attack.

However, it is clear that Forest's fitness has been affected by the continuous high-intensity play, and their fitness in the second half has also started to suffer, and the counter-attack is not very strong. Although Donn kept asking the team to attack on the sidelines, the Forest players were weak. Later, Donn resigned to his fate, and he began to make substitutions, replacing exhausted starters and replacing them with substitutes, and the focus began to focus on defense.

The last five or six minutes were a severe test for Donn's heart. Only one goal ahead, while Lyon pressed hard. If Lyon had scored for him the hard work of the game had been in vain – he might have accepted a 1-1 result for the first ten minutes, but he was still one goal ahead and he would not have accepted anything other than a victory.

Fortunately, although the scene was thrilling, Nottingham Forest finally held on. The referee blew the full-time whistle four minutes after stoppage time and Nottingham Forest picked up a valuable away win and an away goal amid boos from the home fans.

With an away win and an away goal, it looks like Nottingham Forest have made it to the Bernabeu with one leg. How terrible the Forest team is back at home, I believe it will not disappoint Lyon.

※※※

Three days later, Donn led his side to a home win over Fulham in the round of 36. A day later, Arsenal also won away from home, with the gap between the two teams still three points and two league games remaining. The odds of bookmakers such as William Hill are still bullish on Arsenal to win the title. And in the Champions League odds, Donn's team is also the second-to-last of the four teams - except for Lyon, the underdog is Forest.

Real Madrid are the odds to be the top of the odds, as they picked up two valuable away goals in a 2-2 draw away to Barcelona in the Champions League in midweek and have a good chance of reaching the final. This year's Champions League final was held at their home stadium, the Bernabeu Stadium. Once Real Madrid reach the final, they will have a truly unreserved home advantage, and half of the title will be almost all Real Madrid's.

No one can doubt Real Madrid's desire for the Champions League, they have been one title away from winning the Champions League for 10 years, this time on their own home turf, and there is certainly no reason to pass it up. It can be seen from their away semi-final against Barcelona that their anti-away momentum completely suppressed Barcelona, although the score was 2:2, and everyone who watched the game at the beginning and even Barcelona fans would admit that Barcelona was lucky to be able to draw Real Madrid......

Donn is facing a team of tigers and wolves on both fronts, both teams with an insatiable desire for a championship. Real Madrid, the world's No. 1 club, have not played the trophy they have won nine times for 12 years. And Arsene Wenger's Arsenal also want to regain their own title in the league, the Champions League has lost to Nottingham Forest, will the league have to lose again?

※※※

Three days later, Nottingham Forest beat the invading Lyon 2-1 at the City Stadium to bid farewell to the Champions League at the City Stadium and progress to the final 3-1 on aggregate, reaching the final for the first time in five years.

At the same time, Real Madrid also beat Barcelona 1-0 at home, eliminating arch-rivals Barcelona 3-2 on aggregate. Success has made the Bernabéu, the main board of this Champions League final, their real home stadium.

In the FA Cup, Nottingham Forest reached the final against Tottenham Hotspur. In the Champions Cup, Nottingham Forest also reached the final, and their opponents were Real Madrid. The league, with two rounds left, is three points away from Arsenal.

Will Nottingham Forest, who have been sprinting on three fronts, return to Nottingham with three trophies at the end of the season, or will they collapse and get nothing?

Half a month later, we'll find out.

(To be continued)