The Champions League took a back seat on Wednesday night as two former European champions stole the limelight in a 5-5 Sky Bet Championship thriller.
Aston Villa, with one, and Nottingham Forest with two have three European titles between them, but find themselves playing in the second tier of English football these days.
But when the two came head-to-head at Villa Park, the goals went flying in to such an extent that social media could not help but turn its attention from the Champions League to the Championship.
Villa and Forest conjuring up a suspiciously entertaining match on a European Cup night is it? #wegetitlads #weallgotstories — Duncan Alexander (@oilysailor) November 28, 2018
The score was 3-3 at half-time after a Tammy Abraham hat-trick for the hosts, but neither side was done there.
GOOALLL!!! Wow. It's number 4️⃣ for @TammyAbraham this evening! He heads home @JackGrealish1's brilliant delivery from a free-kick. #AVFC make their man advantage count straight away. It's 4-4 at Villa Park!#PartOfThePride pic.twitter.com/wt3L8pu0Yd — Aston Villa FC (@AVFCOfficial) November 28, 2018
Villa eventually found themselves 5-4 up with just 10 minutes of normal time remaining, but Lewis Grabban had other ideas and levelled things up with his second of the game.
Goal for Forest! (Grabban 82') Aston Villa 5-5 #NFFC pic.twitter.com/VivkjtO08R — Nottingham Forest FC (@NFFC) November 28, 2018 What did we do to deserve this Villa-Forest game?
— Tom Victor (@tomvictor) November 28, 2018
The officials stayed on message too, with five minutes of stoppage time only adding to the tension.
90' Aston Villa 5-5 #NFFC: The referee has indicated a minimum of five minutes of added time at the end of the second half. Deep breath..... — Nottingham Forest FC (@NFFC) November 28, 2018 Following along with @NFFC v @astonvilla... pic.twitter.com/zavyMvGEuM — Dr Julia Sargent (@Julia_Sargent) November 28, 2018
Eventually the game ended with the scores level, and while games like Paris St Germain v Liverpool and Tottenham v Inter Milan looked like being the main events, they were upstaged by two old hands.
Forest had eight shots vs Villa, five of which were on target and drew 5-5. That's genuinely a bigger achievement than winning the European Cup twice. — Duncan Alexander (@oilysailor) November 28, 2018 Aston Villa 5 – Nottingham Forest 5The best game of the night has taken place elsewhere between two former European Cup winners.Tammy Abraham scored 4. — Michael Yokhin (@Yokhin) November 28, 2018
To award each side just one point seemed a little unfair after such a feast of entertainment.
Can we not bend the rules a little and give Villa and Forest three points each? — Stephen Tudor (@SteTudor123) November 28, 2018
Although spare a thought for both sides' social media teams who had to tweet the goals as they went in.
Villa admin tonight like...#PartOfThePride #AVFC pic.twitter.com/uwG4h0Bgj9 — Aston Villa FC (@AVFCOfficial) November 28, 2018
It might not have been the European night fans dream of, but there's no doubting what the game of the evening was.
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