Nottingham Forest have enjoyed great success with players who have just arrived at the team - Photo: REUTERS
The success of this once-famous European team did not come too quickly. In 2017, Greek billionaire Evangelos Marinakis bought Nottingham Forest - then among the weakest teams in the English First Division.
The glorious past is a thing of the past. Nottingham Forest won the Champions League in the late 1970s, but when English football entered the Premier League era, they fell into a steep decline and at times were relegated to the Second Division.
The generosity and strange strategy of billionaire Marinakis - who owns a fortune of about 3 billion USD - has revived Nottingham Forest. Mr. Marinakis has spent a lot of money on Nottingham Forest, but most of it has been poured into the transfer market and through a special form - player loans. Every year Nottingham Forest borrows about 7-8 players, quite understandable when they are still a team in the lower league.
In the summer of 2022, Nottingham Forest officially returned to the Premier League after 23 years. That was also when they ended their loan policy, sending back a total of 15 players that year, with a number of players also leaving for free. What they lost, they had to make up for. Nottingham Forest brought in... 22 new players in the summer of 2022, with 19 of them being permanent purchases.
The policy changes, but the madness remains. A completely revamped team like that is very rare in the Premier League.
Many pundits pointed out Nottingham Forest's problems, but luck and hard work helped them escape relegation spectacularly in their return season. In the summer of 2023, Nottingham Forest stayed in the league with just 4 points above the "red light" zone. A year later, the story was similar, with them also only 6 points above the relegation zone.
If buying more is not enough, billionaire Marinakis decided to... buy more. Every year Nottingham Forest stirs up the transfer market with more than 10 contracts. But the turning point was probably when they appointed coach Nuno Espirinto Santo. The Portuguese strategist has led two teams in the Premier League and is a typical face of "English football specialties".
Mr. Santo seems to be only suitable for mid-level clubs like Wolverhampton and now Nottingham Forest - where he can easily implement tight defensive football and lightning-fast counter-attacks. But every time he goes to big clubs, Mr. Santo always has conflicts with superstars. From Tottenham to Al-Hilal (the team that owns Benzema), Mr. Santo is not liked by anyone.
Nottingham Forest have brought back the name of Santo, a Portuguese strategist who is somewhat similar to Jose Mourinho. Santo has brought Nottingham Forest back to the position of a top team in England, according to the strange formula of billionaire Marinakis.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/cong-thuc-ky-la-cua-nottingham-forest-20250317090750947.htm
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