Andy Reid and some of the other Nottingham Forest coaching staff have recently started Spanish lessons, such is the multicultural nature of the modern dressing room.
It is still early days however and the under-23 head coach still had to draft in the help of Marcelo Valencia, a teenage Guatemalan midfielder, to help translate as Braian Ojeda, the Paraguayan international, made his first appearance in a Forest shirt.
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It is an unfortunate sign of the times around the globe that after joining Forest on deadline day, still under the tenure of Chris Hughton, it took more than three weeks before Ojeda and fellow new addition Mohamed Drager were able to train with their new teammates.
In Steve Cooper’s first press conference as head coach, he confirmed that both men had just been given the green light to emerge from COVID-19 isolation and they got to work at the Nigel Doughty Academy for the first time eight days ago. And a month after signing for the Championship club, midfielder Ojeda, who joined from Olimpia, and full-back Drager, the latest player to join from Olympiakos, got their first taste of the action at the City Ground.
Drager speaks perfect English and helped with some half-time advice for some of the young players, while Ojeda let his football do the talking.
The last competitive game Ojeda had played was at the Estadio Rodrigo Paz Delgardo, in Quito, Ecuador, where the Paraguayan made his international debut as a 65th-minute substitute, as his country were beaten 2-0, early last month. Drager’s last involvement was as an unused substitute with Tunisia, as they won 2-0 in Ndola, Zambia.
From South America and Africa, to the banks of the River Trent, to face Burnley under-23s in the Premier League 2.
Ojeda was among the signings that the new look Forest recruitment team had been most excited about landing. The 21-year-old was seen as a player who could effectively link defence and attack with energy and passing range to get Forest moving up the pitch. It would be unfair to draw too much from a single appearance in the under-23 side, in a new country, within a new style of football, but in 81 minutes on the pitch, he did demonstrate some of those qualities.
Sitting in front of the back four alongside another highly regarded young prospect, Tyrese Fornah, Ojeda looked confident and composed on the ball, as he demonstrated with one early, raking crossfield pass that picked out Drager on the overlap.
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Ojeda also had the legs to get forward and provide attacking threat, with one low and driven cross providing a moment of threat that was as close as Forest came to making a breakthrough in the first half, while he also had several efforts from range, the best of which curled a few feet wide. A promising start from a player who is expected, in time, to challenge the likes of James Garner, Ryan Yates, Jack Colback and Cafu for a place.
Drager is a player who impressed in Germany with Freiburg and Paderborn (on loan), before moving to Athens in September 2020, for a fee of around 1 million euros.
He had been on the radar of some of Forest’s recruitment team for some time and, with Jordi Osei-Tutu suffering a hamstring injury almost immediately after his arrival on loan from Arsenal, Forest decided to bolster the right-back position with the signing of Drager and Djed Spence, on loan from Middlesbrough.
There were also promising moments from the 25-year-old full-back. Drager was also not shy about getting forward and his stand out moments were generally attacking ones.
Both players lasted 81 minutes, before being substituted, with the game’s only goals coming in injury time, with sub Alex Gibson-Hammond’s crisp finish for Forest cancelled out by Anthony Driscoll-Glennon.
“We asked Marcelo to be in and around the dressing room to help translate and get the tactical information across,” said Reid. “But you could see in the game that he has plenty of tactical awareness. He did the things we asked of him and took up the positions we wanted. He is somebody I am looking forward to seeing out on the first-team pitch.
“My Spanish is not good — although I am taking lessons. I am not sure that Braian understands Irish too well! We have a lovely lady who teaches the players English and we thought it was only fair that we made an effort as well, so she is teaching us Spanish. There are six or seven of the staff trying to learn. I think it is important.
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“Drager’s English is absolutely fantastic, he was great communicating. In fact we were going through some bits on the tactics board at half-time and he was giving some advice to Oli Hammond. Things like that are gold dust for me, when first team players come down to play in the under-23s and want to get involved. When they engage with the young players like that, it is massive for me.”
Steve Cooper, who had travelled with the first team ahead of the game against Birmingham, was not at the City Ground, but will have been able to follow it on a stream.
And he expects both players to be in a position to push for a first-team place after the international break — with Ojeda not having been called up by Paraguay this time around.
“They have been good (in training). But it is important with players like this, that you have to let them settle in,” Cooper told The Athletic, prior to kick-off. “Braian in particular has come from a country that is a long way from here and he will need time.
“It is important for them to get a feel for playing in our stadium. It will help them get used to the pitch, the dressing room and the surroundings. We will also have a strong plan for them during the international break, to make sure that when the next game comes around, they are much closer to being available.
“We have explained the plan to them both and they are both on board. Any minutes they get will be very important for their preparation for the first team.”
(Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Bongarts/Getty Images)
Nottingham Forest writer for The Athletic. Previously spent 25 years at the Nottingham Post. Unsurprisingly, Nottingham born and bred. Meet me by the left lion.
