Jim Goodwin knows from bitter experience that no one remembers losing cup semi-finalists. That is why he’s determined to do everything he can to ensure his Aberdeen team take that final step this weekend.
The Dons head to Hampden for the first time under the Irishman and it’s their first visit to Mount Florida since 2019. It has been a long time coming and although Rangers go into the Viaplay Cup last four as favourites, Goodwin is adamant his team aren’t going there to make up the numbers as they look to upset the odds.
He reached two semi-finals as boss of St Mirren and lost both in the one season as they fell to Livingston in the League Cup before crashing out to St Johnstone in the Scottish Cup. Goodwin said: “Nobody tends to remember the semi-finalists. We’re not satisfied with just getting to this stage.
“This is the minimum requirement of a club of this size. With the squad we have managed to put together, we should be looking at the Scottish Cup and League Cup and getting to Hampden initially to give ourselves a chance of getting to the final.
“That’s what we’ve managed to do at the first time of asking for this group. We want to ensure we put on a good performance and win the game.”
Goodwin will dig into the heartbreak of those two previous semi-finals to make sure it’s third time lucky with Aberdeen. He can also draw on his experiences as a player when he lifted this trophy 10 years ago with St Mirren, seeing off Celtic in the semi-finals before beating Hearts.
The Pittodrie boss said: “You always have to try to draw on past experiences, both as a player and a manager. A couple of seasons ago I managed to take St Mirren to two semi-finals in the same season but unfortunately we went out of both. I am trying to take some of the experience from that, think what I would do differently and hopefully that stands me in good stead for this weekend.”
Aberdeen were left reeling when Rangers came from behind to beat them 3-2 at Pittodrie last month. The Dons had been leading 2-1 deep into stoppage-time only for Scott Arfield’s double to rob them at the death.
It left Goodwin’s side floored and it took them time to get back on track. In the aftermath, Goodwin admitted it was the worst he had felt in management.
But he believes the Dons are now over that disappointment and there will be no lasting scars in tomorrow’s clash. Goodwin said: “There are plenty of positives to take out of it. Obviously the feeling of disappointment and frustration at the end of the game was very raw at the time because we had come so close.
“Certainly there were some really good individual performances. Collectively as a group we showed we can cause Rangers problems and scored a couple of good goals on the night.
“We have to take positives from that and try to implement some of those good actions into the game on Sunday. Then if we get to the latter stages with the kind of lead we had in that particular league fixture we have to manage the game a lot better than we did on that night.”
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