Fleetwood Town have knocked Arsenal out of the Carabao Cup. The League Two side drew 1-1 with the Premier League champions at Highbury Stadium on Tuesday night, then won the shootout 5-3. Conor Haughey, a teenager from the New Lodge in Belfast, put the fifth Fleetwood penalty into the top corner. The ground emptied onto the grass.
It is one of the great shocks of the competition, and it is still the football story of the week. Fleetwood sit 84 places below Arsenal. Their ground holds a little over 5,000. Arsenal have not played a competitive match at a ground called Highbury for more than 20 years. This was the other one, on the Lancashire coast, and it did not bring the old name any luck.
How a last-16 tie became a shootout
Aaron Loupalo-Bi gave Fleetwood the lead. Viktor Gyokeres equalised early in the second half. Arsenal had most of the ball and did not find a winner. Max Dowman was shown a red card late on. Illan Meslier and Ceadach O'Neill made their competitive debuts. The cup run is over.
The shootout turned on Jay Lynch. The Fleetwood goalkeeper saved a tame penalty from Bruno Guimaraes. Haughey, chosen as the fifth taker, then finished it. Matt Lawlor, the Fleetwood manager, was close to tears when the ball hit the net. Friends and family who had come over from Belfast were in the invasion that followed.
Fleetwood 1-1 Arsenal, Fleetwood Win 5-3 on Penalties
- Aaron Loupalo-Bi scored for Fleetwood. Viktor Gyokeres equalised early in the second half.
- Max Dowman was sent off for Arsenal late in the match.
- Jay Lynch saved Bruno Guimaraes's penalty. Conor Haughey scored the winner.
- Fourth round, last 16. Fleetwood are into the quarter-finals.
- The sides had never met in a competitive game before Tuesday.
A Belfast teenager and a phone that would not stop
Haughey spoke to BBC Sport NI on Wednesday, once the messages had slowed down. "My phone wouldn't work for two to three hours after the game because there were so many messages," he said. Asked about an interview that had already travelled, he said there were too many emotions, that he is from the New Lodge, and that it came out that way. "It's been like a dream. It's unbelievable and a surreal moment."
That was the plan Lawlor's side had advertised before kick-off. They had not conceded in the cup: Ched Evans against Chesterfield, then a 4-0 win over Shrewsbury, then a 1-0 win over Championship Sheffield United, all at home. We set the tie up on Tuesday morning, when the question was whether a clean defensive record could survive an Arsenal front line. It survived long enough. The record is no longer clean, because Gyokeres scored. The result is better than a clean sheet.
What the shock is worth
Arsenal remain the team to beat in the league. This does not change the table. It changes the cup, and it changes the week for a club whose Saturday was a 2-1 defeat at Exeter. Quarter-finalists from League Two do not come along often. When they do, the replay requests and the phone traffic are part of the story, and so is the manager who could barely speak.
The draw will tell Fleetwood where this goes next. Until then the picture from Tuesday is enough: a golden ball in the top corner, a goalkeeper who saved the moment before it, and a ground by the sea that the champions could not get out of.