The team always successfully punch way above their weight in the Cup, but they always find their Waterloo in the semis, away to one of the richer clubs in the league.

To influence their fate coach Robert Maaskant had emptied his entire box of tricks.

He gave away the league game against Heracles (4-0), he urged referee Pieter Vink not to get influenced by the fanatic Twente crowd and dreamed of winning the Cup out loud ("For NAC that's like winning the league").

He didn't get the effect he was after, even though the first half would have lifted the spirits in the NAC dressing room.

After a messy opening stages, so typical of a Cup semifinal, NAC took the lead in the 23rd minute out of the blue, being invited to do so by the home team.

Eljero Elia foolishly lost the ball in midfield, his team mate Slobodan Rajkovic slipped and provided Anthony Lurling with a wonderful panorama of the Twente goal.

The experienced forward didn't even say thank you and scored: 0-1.

It almost seemed as if FC Twente were going to hit back in the same minute, but Romano Denneboom was denied by NAC keeper Jelle ten Rouwelaar after a great attack.

Denneboom wasted two more chances shortly after the break, but there was no way Twente weren't going to equalize from the continued flow of good chances.

Eventually it was Theo Janssen who found the first hole in the NAC defense and slotted home with a powerful volley: 1-1.

The midfielder could have made it 2-1 in the 72nd minute, but again Ten Rouwelaar was there to show he's a decent goal keeper

NAC were hardly able to fight off the pressure of the one-way-traffic towards their penalty area and were only hoping to make it to extra-time and as such perhaps drag out a penalty series.

But in the 78th minute NAC's hopes were shattered when Romano Denneboom finally turned his team's superiority into goals: 2-1.

NAC desperate attempt to get an equalizer actually provided for some precarious moments for FC Twente, but when they made it 3-1 from a quick counter attack the verdict was final: 3-1.

For Steve McClaren the victory was a redemption.

The Englishman receives a lot of praise for the offensive and dominant way his team plays, but compliments don't buy him anything when it doesn't lead to some silverware to show for it.

For ambitious Steve McClaren only one thing counts: winning a prize.

"FC Twente have last one the Cup in 2001, but the impact is still big," McClaren said.

"Within the club I still hear people talk about regularly. They are still so proud of it. So it's easy to tell that they want to win it very much this time around. The same goes for me. Now that we are in the final I want to win that Cup."

All results

Fixtures - Results - Table - Topscorers

"The intellectualisation
of football has
always foundered
on a simple problem-
-the players. Doing
all your most
rewarding thinking
with your feet seems
to dull the philo-
sophical impulse.
Unless, of course,
you are Dutch.
According to legend,
Europeans played
a moronic, muscular
version of the world's
game, until Holland
proclaimed its vision
of total football in the
1974 World Cup,
and enlightenment
dawned."

From:
Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football