ALL of Aberdeen players were overjoyed when Dimitar Mitov saved Alistair Johnston’s penalty kick to clinch victory over Celtic for them in the Scottish Gas Scottish Cup final at Hampden on Saturday evening.
Many of them – those of them, that is, who didn’t drop to their knees in disbelief at the end of a mentally and physically exhausting encounter with their treble-chasing rivals – rushed over to congratulate the Bulgarian goalkeeper.
The bear hug which Mitov received from centre-half Mats Knoester, the Dutch centre-half who had performed brilliantly in front of him for the full 120 minutes and who was subsequently named Man of the Match, was a little bit tighter than the others.
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“I was due to take the fifth penalty,” said Knoester with a broad grin as he looked back on Aberdeen’s epic 4-2 penalty shootout success. “I was ready and Demi saved it. I gave him the biggest hug afterwards.”
The unexpected triumph may have ended a 35 year wait to lift the Scottish Cup for Aberdeen – but Knoester himself has won major silverware before having helped former club Ferencvaros to be crowned Hungarian champions two years ago.
The 26-year-old defender, though, felt that the weekend win was a far greater achievement given what it meant to Aberdeen and their supporters.
“For me personally, it's just about having belief in yourself, in your team, in the tactics. And shutting down all the noise around you. Then you prove them wrong. So, it's the best feeling.”
Knoester revealed that he was firmly behind manager Jimmy Thelin’s surprise decision to switch from a 4-2-3-1 formation to a 3-4-3 set-up and argued that it had ultimately secured the victory.
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“We had previous matches with Celtic of course,” he said. “They're a good team, they're a really good team. They win a lot of prizes. We knew we had to change our tactic and maybe do something different. This was our plan and it worked out well. So, yeah, I'm very happy with that.
“They scored one goal out of a set-piece, not out of open play, which was a bit s***. You know, you're defending so well and then you get a set-piece. But we said, ‘The one thing that can't happen is if they score a goal or we score a goal and we change’. That's happened in the past few games.
“So we said, ‘Just stick to the game plan’. Then the longer the game went, it was still 1-0 and we got some good transitions. Then you start to feel, ‘Okay, we only need this one half chance’. Then it goes in and then it actually happens. Of course, it has to work out in the end. But we did believe in it, yeah, definitely.
“This was a good team performance. If you put it on paper, you would say Celtic is the better team. But then you need to come up with character and a team sticking together. That's what we did.”
