In the second leg of the Europa League round of 16, the team managed by a former BVB coach was knocked out in dramatic fashion. In the penalty shoot-out against Nottingham Forest, the penalty takers of Mike Tullberg’s FC Midtjylland managed the bitter feat of failing to score a single goal from their three attempts.Curiously, Nottingham goalkeeper Stefan Ortega didn’t have to make a save from any of the three penalties. Gue-Sung Cho and Aral Simsir both hit the left post. With the score at 0–3, Edward Chilufya also lost his nerve; his standing foot slipped and, as he fell backwards, he blasted the ball over the bar. The result was thus decided after three rounds. Midtjylland had won the first leg 1–0 last week, but the pressure was clearly too much in front of their home crowd. Nottingham led 2–1 after 90 minutes, and nothing else happened in extra time. Speaking to Danish broadcaster TV2 afterwards, Tullberg said disappointedly: "Some players didn’t want to take the penalties, so others had to step up. The penalties weren’t great, but that’s just how it goes. It’s not their fault we’ve been knocked out. And I’d rather go out like this than after our performance in the first 50 minutes. There was a clear difference in class there."Despite the bitter elimination, Tullberg was still in a joking mood. "I asked Duncan (assistant coach Rasmussen; editor’s note): ‘Why on earth did we practise penalties?’ It really didn’t look like we’d need them." Midtjylland had finished the group stage of the Europa League in an outstanding third place in the table, yet went into the match as underdogs against the Premier League club, which had spent over 300 million euros on transfers last winter and summer – against revenues of just over 200 million euros. Sphères the Danes can only dream of.In the league, however, Midtjylland – unlike the struggling FC Copenhagen – are in the championship round. At the weekend, however, the second-placed side lost 0-1 to FC Nordsjælland, leaving them five points behind leaders Aarhus GF.Tullberg has been Midtjylland’s manager since September last year, having previously spent six years working with Borussia Dortmund’s youth teams. In early 2025, the 40-year-old also stepped in as interim manager for three matches, guiding BVB to two wins and a draw. He was succeeded by Niko Kovac. Ortega and Nottingham now face FC Porto in the quarter-finals, having knocked out VfB Stuttgart in the round of 16. The 33-year-old moved from Manchester City to the historic club in the winter – partly to keep his chances of a World Cup call-up alive. However, the former Bielefeld player is missing from national team manager Julian Nagelsmann’s March squad. He was last included in the DFB squad for the Nations League quarter-finals around a year ago, but did not feature in the match.Add GOAL.com as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting