Nottingham Forest took the lead in the 43rd minute when Huddersfield's Levi Colwill scored an own goal attempting to defend a cross from James Garner.

[7] The visiting side took an early lead when Jack Colback scored after Wes Foderingham had saved a shot from Philip Zinckernagel.

Brennan Johnson then doubled his side's lead with 19 minutes of the match remaining after taking advantage of an error from John Egan.

One minute into injury time, Sander Berge scored from a Morgan Gibbs-White corner to halve the deficit and the matched ended 2–1 to Nottingham Forest.

[9] During a pitch invasion after the match, Sheffield United's Billy Sharp was headbutted to the ground and required stitches to a wound; the perpetrator was later jailed.

Their most recent previous appearance was in the 2017 EFL Championship play-off final where they drew 0–0 with Reading before going on to win 4–3 in the resulting penalty shoot-out to secure promotion to the Premier League.

Nottingham Forest made their most recent appearance at the national stadium when they lost 1–0 to Manchester United in the 1992 Football League Cup Final at the original Wembley.

In the 12th minute, Zinckernagel was brought down by Naby Sarr but Ryan Yates headed James Garner's free kick wide of the Huddersfield Town goal.

[22] In the 55th minute, Zinckernagel received the first yellow card of the match for a foul on Lewis O'Brien but the resulting free kick went wide of the Nottingham Forest goal.

Two minutes later, Jonathan Hogg's header was high before Huddersfield Town made the first substitution of the game with Jon Russell replacing Sarr.

On 71 minutes, a shot from Johnson went wide of the Huddersfield Town goal before Toffolo fell in the Nottingham Forest penalty area after a tackle from Colback,[23] which the referee judged to be a dive.

The decision was reviewed by VAR, which did not find a "clear and obvious error", and Toffolo was booked for a dive, and no penalty was awarded.

Three minutes later, Pipa's 35-yard (32 m) strike went high over the Nottingham Forest goal before Samba was forced off the pitch with an injury to be replaced by Ethan Horvath.

The referee blew the final whistle and Nottingham Forest won the match 1–0, to gain promotion to the Premier League.