Aberdeen’s stand-in captain Angus MacDonald reflected on a “crazy” Scottish Gas Scottish Cup semi-final defeat to Celtic at Hampden which saw him experience emotional extremes.
The Dons led through an early Bojan Miovski goal but MacDonald’s mistake allowed Hoops striker Kyogo Furuhashi to race clear on goal, with Nicolas Kuhn finally levelling.
Substitute James Forrest put Celtic ahead in the 63rd minute before Dons substitute Ester Sokler levelled in the 90th minute.
Matt O’Riley fired Celtic ahead in extra time but MacDonald atoned for his costly earlier error when he headed in the leveller in the 119th minute to take the game to penalties.
The 31-year-old former Barnsley, Hull and Rotherham defender scored his spot-kick and while Celtic keeper Joe Hart hit the post with the Hoops’ fifth penalty, he then saved from Killian Phillips to ensure a 6-5 shoot-out win and a final date on May 25 against Rangers or Hearts – Hart’s last game before his retirement from football.
“I hold my hands up for the mistake because I gifted them a goal after 15 minutes,” said MacDonald.
“But to score the equaliser in the last minute of extra time then score a penalty, it was crazy.
“With the way the game had panned out, I thought we’d go on to win it.
READ MORE: Why Celtic beating Aberdeen is good news for the top six
“When I scored it was a great feeling, especially for my family. But it just wasn’t to be.
“It’s 50-50 when it gets to penalties, isn’t it? The boys did well to get it that far and we had our chances to win it. On another day they would go in.
“We are disappointed for the fans today because they have followed us everywhere this season.
“We have to take the positives from the game, we can’t let our standards drop now.
“We have five cup finals now and if we can cause those teams the problems we caused Celtic we’ll be fine.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here