Presumably, come Friday lunchtime, Evangelos Marinakis will have more than one eye on events at the House of European Football, Uefa’s headquarters in Nyon.
Not only will Olympiakos discover their Champions League playoff opponents but Nottingham Forest will learn whether they will face Fenerbahce or Panathinaikos, his Greek team’s arch rivals, in the Europa League playoffs. Marinakis, the Forest owner, would be public enemy No 1 if Sean Dyche’s side end up across town in Athens.
Forest cruised into the playoff round with a one-sided victory against the Hungarian champions Ferencvaros, Igor Jesus maintaining his impressive goalscoring form to cap a fine few days for Dyche. James McAtee, one of those afforded a chance to impress, completed the scoring from the penalty spot to condemn Robbie Keane’s team to a 4-0 defeat.
The last time Forest won three successive home games in a European competition, in 1979, it culminated in them lifting their first European Cup under Brian Clough. While there is a long way to go this time, these are the kind of nights that foster hope of at least reaching the showpiece in Istanbul in May.
A week is a long time in this game. Seven days after being booed off by the majority of the Forest supporters who travelled to Braga, they blew away Ferencvaros, ending the Hungarian side’s unbeaten record in this competition and also their hopes of a top-eight berth.
The galling thing for Forest is had they claimed victory in northern Portugal then owing to their margin of victory here and results elsewhere, Dyche’s side would have automatically advanced to the round of 16 themselves. Then again, that way supporters would not have another European adventure to tick off next month, Friday’s draw in Switzerland determining their opponents.
“We want to play at a level that shows our intention in the Europa League, one that hopefully gets you excited about the next round, too,” was Dyche’s mission statement in his programme notes and half an hour after kick-off, those words felt akin to something of a premonition.
Forest could feasibly have led by three or four goals but had to make do with a two-goal advantage at the interval, with the homegrown captain, Ryan Yates, one of five changes from Sunday’s victory at Brentford, influential in both.
It was Yates’s first-time cross that the Ferencvaros defender Bence Otvos put past his own goalkeeper and four minutes later Yates seized on a heavy touch by winger Cadu and Igor Jesus moseyed forward unchallenged. The Brazil striker ran at the visiting captain, Ibrahim Cissé, who inadvertently diverted the Forest forward’s shot into the far corner via the faintest of deflections.
Forest added a third soon after Nicolás Domínguez’s header struck the base of a post. Ibrahim Sangaré flipped a pass over the top of the visitors’ back line and Ferencvaros allowed it to bounce on the edge of their 18-yard box. Igor Jesus was alert and, after pouncing on the loose ball, he dispatched a first-time effort into the corner.
Ferencvaros offered only glimpses of quality, Bamidele Yusuf’s bullet header against the bar a case in point but that did not stop Dyche introducing Morgan Gibbs-White, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ola Aina midway through the second half. Gibbs-White, who saw his penalty saved in Braga, allowed McAtee to seal the win from 12 yards and keep the confidence flowing. “We think we can go all the way,” Yates said.
This was hardly a showing to enhance Keane’s CV but, as he pointed out afterwards, there was always going to be a gulf between the teams. “The difference is £650m-worth of players on the field,” Keane said. “I’m disappointed but, overall, I think we’re realistic.”
The former Republic of Ireland striker, who went on trial at Forest as a teenager, has established a fine reputation coaching overseas, at Maccabi Tel Aviv, where he won the domestic double, and more recently in Budapest. Keane’s assistant, Stephen Glass, played with Dyche at Watford, while their analyst, Phil Hudson, spent 11 years on the staff at Middlesbrough.
If it feels like it could be a case of fate on Friday, the same goes for Keane, who could be reunited with Celtic and Martin O’Neill in the playoff round; Keane played on loan at Celtic in 2010 and under O’Neill for Ireland. Ferencvaros, second best here from the moment Kristoffer Zachariassen’s sixth-minute header cannoned off the inside of a post, will face either Celtic or Ludogorets in the next round.
“Maybe it is written in the stars, myself against Martin,” Keane said. “He has given a lot of energy to the club and the players since coming back. It was a club that was very, very down. Regardless of who we play, it will be two tough games.”
