This was just Nottingham Forest's second win under Vitor Pereira – the other being against Fenerbahce in the last round of this competition. They won both the game on the night and the tie after the penalty shootout after previously going six games without a victory under the manager who replaced Sean Dyche in February.
It was clear with Pereira's team selection – as he made nine changes – that Sunday's clash with Tottenham and Premier League safety is the priority for the two-time European Cup winners.
Pereira opted to bring on three of those who will surely start on Sunday in Morgan Gibbs-White, Neco Williams and Murillo just after the hour mark.
He will have hoped that would have been to see the game out as, at that time, Forest were going through following the goals from Nicolas Dominguez and Ryan Yates.
But Martin Erlic's strike brought Midtjylland level, which meant those three would play a lot more minutes than maybe Pereira would have liked, given the significance of Sunday's clash with Spurs, who they are just a point behind in the battle to stay up with goal difference currently keeping them out of the bottom three.
It also meant that Elliot Anderson had to be introduced in the 75th minute and the England midfielder was not shy in putting himself about in what was a physical game with German referee Felix Zwayer allowing plenty of challenges to go unpunished.
Anderson's determination was a sign that Forest were still desperate to progress here as he continually threw himself into tackles and tried to force Forest forward.
It would need penalties to progress, but the last time Forest came into a second leg trailing and eventually got through to the next round was during the 1979-80 European Cup against Berliner FC Dynamo.
They went all the way that year to win the competition and, after tonight, they can still go on and lift the Europa League trophy this season.
