How Forest’s academy is trying to find the next homegrown stars for Nuno’s squad

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The day before Zach Abbott made only his second senior Nottingham Forest start — in an FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City at Wembley — he got a call from Warren Joyce.

The Forest B team coach wanted to give the young defender some support and encouragement, but also a bit of last-minute advice.

“He told me to watch an interview featuring Tiger Woods’ caddie (Steve Williams). He talked about how he has dealt with all the big shots in his career, in play-offs or in major finals,” Abbott tells The Athletic.

“He talked about how he thinks about every single moment that had gone before it and about how it had all been leading up to that moment — and how that was a reward for everything he had done to get to that point. It is about seeing things as an opportunity; an opportunity you have worked for.

“That was my mentality at Wembley. I was thinking about trying to enjoy it, but also about trying to do my job. We were disappointed not to get over the line. But it was a proud moment, and I will have learned a lot from it.

“Trust me, I have seen many, many videos because of him (Joyce)… he just enjoys giving us little things to watch that might give us motivation or inspiration. He enjoys things that might instill the idea of what a model professional looks like.”

The landscape has changed dramatically at Forest since 2022, when Steve Cooper led the club to promotion via the Championship play-offs. Nuno Espirito Santo has subsequently inspired an unexpected but deserved challenge for European qualification. All of which has raised the bar significantly at the Nigel Doughty Academy.

Now the challenge for academy chief Chris McGuane, head of player development Craig Mulholland, and Joyce, is not to produce young men capable of playing in the Championship but in the Champions League.

“That is the challenge we want. If you are working for a club like Forest, with the history we have, you want the challenges to be to produce players who are capable of getting into a successful side,” Joyce tells The Athletic.

“The bar has been raised. But we want to produce players who are capable of competing in Champions League football, ultimately.

Joyce wants to develop players capable of playing in the Champions League (Richard Sellers/PA Images via Getty Images)

“I have shown the players videos of Rory McIlroy winning the Masters. We have a saying here that ‘right is might’. McIlroy was one of the only golfers who did not join the breakaway group, he stuck up for what he believed in. I believe that you will get the rub of the green if you always strive to do the right things all the time.

“I have been showing the group the story of the U.S. basketball team at the (1992) Olympics — and about the senior players, who led the group through when they needed to. We have looked at the journey of people like that, and you can see that where they got to is not a fluke. Because they did the right things all the time, they always gave themselves the best possible chance.

“The idea is to get into the first team eventually. So the more pressure situations we can put these players under, the better. We tell them that training for the first team is like preparing for the Olympic Games. You might train for four years ahead of it. You have one opportunity to shine. One final. The difference for these young players is that they do not know when their final is.

“Their final might be next week… it might be a few months away. All that matters is that they are ready. That is why we need to provoke and prod them, to make sure they are ready, in every way, for when their chance comes.”

Last night at the City Ground, Forest triumphed in the final of the Premier League International Cup against Lyon.

Forest claimed a dramatic victory, winning 5-4 on penalties, with Abbott netting the decisive spot kick, after George Murray-Jones had saved two of the Lyon penalties. The game had ended 0-0 after extra time, with Lyon goalkeeper Yvann Konan producing the heroics. Jack Nadin hit the post in the first half and was denied by a smart save from Konan after the break.

The Lyon keeper also produced smart stops to keep out sub Zyan Blake twice, as well as Joe Gardner, in the side following his loan at League One Lincoln, and Jimmy Sinclair, as the game ended 0-0 after 90 minutes.

Blake flicked a header wide late in extra time, but the Forest fans among the 2,642 at the City Ground saw their side claim a dramatic win.

It was Abbott who applied the last, most significant touch of the game, as he confidently lifted Forest’s sixth penalty high into the back of the net, before Forest’s players lifted the trophy in the centre of the City Ground pitch.

THE WINNING PENALTY! 😍 pic.twitter.com/ywHRJUTxi8

— Nottingham Forest Academy (@NFFCAcademy) May 7, 2025

It provided a taste of the big stage — and of European competition — to a group of young men who are predominantly all from Nottingham and who have been together as a group for many years. A large proportion of them, including Abbott, have been at the club since they were eight or nine.

Forest had beaten Ajax, Monaco, Dinamo Zagreb, Nordsjaelland and Athletic Club on their way to the final.

“That is one of the reasons why this competition is valuable. Because we have played some good sides to get this far,” says Joyce. “With the Premier League 2 and the EFL Trophy, we have played 40-odd games this season, which is more than many Premier League players. So they have had their trials to prepare them for going into league football.

“The lads get a regular opportunity to go and train with the first team. It is great because every manager will get a feeling for whether they can trust a player or they cannot. It is up to them to do enough to impress, to do enough so that he trusts them to play. 

“We tell the players they need to impress with everything they do. Young players might not realise how much they are judged. They are being judged from the moment they walk into this building. It can be how they sit down, how they conduct themselves if they are playing pool or working in the gym. They are judged constantly.

“They need to play in front of big crowds. They need to be adaptable tactically. They need to be good on the ball. We can give them some of those things. Games like this, against different opposition, with a different culture can test them a little bit more.”

This group is largely the same one that was beaten 3-1 in the final of the FA Youth Cup at Old Trafford, when Alejandro Garnacho scored twice, in front of a crowd of almost 68,000, in May 2022.

“The day before we played at Old Trafford, we had one of the most competitive SSGs (small-sided games) I have ever been involved in,” says Abbott, who played in the match at the age of 15.

“Usually, if it is the day before a game, it is not as intense. But this was as tough. He (Joyce) just told us: ‘That will stand you in good stead for the rest of your lives.’ It is all about attitude. He wants us to have an attitude that will benefit us for the rest of our careers and beyond. He always tells us that if we do not play to the highest level we are capable of, it will not be because of attitude, it will be because of our ability.

“We have a very aggressive style of play. We play man-to-man, because he believes that if you can deal with one v one, you are going to have a good career. If you are better than the man you are up against all the time, you are only going to go further and further. We play drills where you are only allowed to tackle one man — and he is your man. That is it. You are not allowed to tackle anyone else.”

The roles are slowly reversing for Abbott, who idolised Alex Mighten, Joe Worrall, Brennan Johnson and Ryan Yates when he was coming through the ranks — and now finds himself as the latest example of what is possible, to the next generation.

“When I was 11 or 12, we had Alex Mighten come in and show us a few tricks of his. I was mesmerised… Hopefully, me getting my chance now is proof to the next generation of what they can do, if they work hard.”

Mighten helped inspire Abbott (Barrington Coombs/PA Images via Getty Images)

Abbott, who is now friends with Yates, has been part of Nuno’s first-team squad since this time last year and, while he is yet to make a Premier League appearance, he is seen as a hugely valuable figure. When Yates has been missing, Abbott’s presence has helped to maintain a record of Forest always having a homegrown player in their matchday squad. It’s a record that stretches back to 1941.

Abbott would also be particularly important if Forest do find themselves playing in Europe. If it happens, they will need eight homegrown players, including four who came through their own academy ranks — and Abbott and Yates are the only two in the first team. Forest have high hopes for Blake (17) and Joel Ndala (18), with the latter signed as an academy player when he joined from Manchester City so he would one day qualify as homegrown at Forest.

Away from the club, Jamie McDonnell (Colchester), Gardner (Lincoln), Ben Perry (Northampton) and Dale Taylor (Wigan) have all thrived while out on loan.

“There are loads of pictures dotted around the training ground of when we got promoted at Wembley in the play-off final,” says Joyce. “We realised recently that many of the lads are in those pictures, in different parts of the crowd. The club didn’t know. They were just random pictures. But lots of the players are there with their families.

“They have been fans since they were kids. Their families, in many cases, are Forest fans. So it is massive for them just to see their kids play here.”

But the reality is that last night’s game will be the last this group plays together, with some of them likely to be released in the summer.

“The idea is that players go on to have a good career at whatever level they are capable of,” says Joyce. “We want them to go into either our first team or into first teams at other clubs. We want to make sure that they know their roles, they know how to win and how to be the best professional they can be.”

(Photo: George Wood/Getty Images)

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