Celtic in Scottish Cup final after finally beating Aberdeen on penalties following classic six-goal thriller
Celtic are in the Scottish Cup final after finally edging past Aberdeen via extra-time in an enthralling semi-final.
The Hoops came from behind to clinch a return to the national stadium thanks to goals from Nicolas Kuhn, James Forrest and Matt O'Riley the latter proving to be the winner in the first half of the added 30 minutes.
Bojan Miovski had stunned Hampden to give the Dons the lead after just three minutes. It came from a neat exchange between Nicky Devlin, Jamie McGrath and Leighton Clarkson with the latter slipping the frontman through clear of the defence and he was his usual deadly self despite the best efforts of Joe Hart. A decent contest unfolded after that and the Hoops were level just under 20 minutes later. They had Angus MacDonald to thank as his dallying on the ball allowed Kyogo to nick in. Stefan Gartenmann recovered very well to get a block in but the ball then fell to Nicolas Kuhn who had an easy finish.
As we looked to be heading to the break level, Aberdeen thought they had a shout for a penalty. Miovski tried to go past Liam Scales at the edge of the box and the Irishman's arm diverted the ball. The Dons man appealed to referee Don Robertson and it went to a VAR check, but it turned out the contact was outside the box.
Peter Leven's side continued to give as they got making for a cracking semi-final. But they fell behind midway through the second half as James Forrest gave his side an instant impact. The experienced winger had been on the pitch for around a minute when he cut in onto his right foot and angled a drive into the bottom corner- it wasn't the fiercest of strikers but Kelle Roos was probably unsighted, with MacDonald moving his leg out the way at the last second.
Leven made attacking subs and Junior Hoilett had a big chance after being played in by Miovski. The sub took a poor touch though and that made it difficult for himself to get the finish in. The same player then had and effort blocked by Cameron Carter-Vickers on the line after Hart got himself in a fankle.
The Dons gave it a good old push to force extra-time and they did just that with a last minute equaliser. Hoilett made up for those misses by curling a delicious cross that was begging for Ester Sokler to head home - and he did just that.
Right at the end of the first half of extra-time, Matt O'Riley handed Celts the initiative. Alistair Johnston's pull back was met by the Denmark midfielder and he sent it into the roof of the net.
The Dons felt they were robbed of a penalty kick but put that behind them by scoring ANOTHER last minute equaliser. Hoilett delivered an almost identical cross and this time it was MacDonald to meet it at the back post and go from villain to hero. And that meant we had penalties.
After a miss each it went to sudden-death and Killian Phillips saw his effort saved by Joe Hart, who had earlier missed a kick in the shoot-out.