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As Vítor Pereira wrapped up his pre‑match media duties at Sukru Saracoglu Stadium on Wednesday evening, his assistant Luís Miguel Moreira da Silva waited at the mouth of the tunnel. “Let’s go?” he said as Pereira eventually emerged, before the Nottingham Forest squad followed the pair on to the pitch.
Then it was down to business, Pereira’s first assignment in charge of Forest at one of his 13 former clubs, Fenerbahce. For Pereira, the Kadikoy district of Istanbul represents familiar territory, having lived in the city across two enjoyable but trophyless spells here as a manager, most recently in 2021.
Pereira knows the difficulty of the challenge in Turkey and the players have been well versed by their fourth head coach of the season. On a crisp evening, barring the bumper-to-bumper rush-hour traffic that trailed Forest’s police escort to the ground from Sabiha Gokcen airport, south-east of the city, for an hour or two it all felt rather serene compared with the febrile atmosphere that will greet them on Thursday in their Europa League playoff first leg.
Then there is the chaos that has stalked Forest’s season since they qualified for Europe for the first time since 1995-96. Their journey in this competition provides a snapshot of the story: Nuno Espírito Santo expressing his excitement at facing Porto after the initial draw was made last August, a game which later proved Sean Dyche’s first in charge in October; the early promise under Ange Postecoglou at Real Betis; Dyche’s last win in the job, a 4-0 rout of Ferencvaros. Now it is over to Pereira to quieten the noise.
Has Pereira told his players how to cope with the racket raining down from the stands? “Just to try and block it out as much as you can,” the Forest midfielder Morgan Gibbs-White says.
“It’s going to be loud, but all we can do is focus on ourselves. I don’t think you can really prepare for an atmosphere, you just have to focus on your game, the team and try to focus on what you can do to help the team as much as possible.”
Pereira believes the key thing is courage and is adamant that he can instil it within a squad that have won three of their past 13 matches in all competitions and none of their past three. Last time out they failed to beat Wolves, the Premier League’s bottom club, 35 fruitless shots ultimately prompting Forest’s fiercely ambitious owner, Evangelos Marinakis, to sack Dyche.
Pereira rescued Wolves last season and he is confident of delivering a similar bounce at Forest. “From the first day you can start to give this energy to them, to pass this energy to them,” the new head coach says.
“I believe that a team absorbs a lot of the personality of the coach or manager. We need to think about the game as an opportunity to show our qualities to prove ourselves and at the end of the game be proud of what we did and what we showed.”
Pereira has had only three training sessions with the squad, including one on arrival in Istanbul, and while he acknowledged it is impossible to load his players with information in such a short window, he is confident his early message has landed. Gibbs-White says the early signs under the Portuguese have been positive. “I think all of the players including myself and the staff are all really excited,” the 26-year-old says.
“I think as players you get used to change, because some players come and go, managers come and go. It is important for us as players to stick together in these moments. Since the new manager has come in it has been really exciting, he’s been really clear about what he wants us to do.”
Fenerbahce appear in rude health under Domenico Tedesco, the former Belgium and RB Leipzig head coach who took charge last September. A lot of that is to do with the squad at his disposal, which includes Ederson, Marco Asensio, Nélson Semedo and, as of this month, N’Golo Kanté, who joined after two and a half years in the Saudi Pro League. Fenerbahce are unbeaten in the Super Lig, second and gunning for a 29th league title, and their only home defeats this season were by Aston Villa in January and cross-city rivals Besiktas, based across the Bosphorus, in the Turkish Cup a month earlier.
Pereira got to a Turkish Cup final himself with Fenerbahce in 2016, when Galatasaray triumphed. It explains why the 57-year-old was in demand before heading on to the training pitches, a queue of local journalists asking him for selfies. “It is a pleasure to be here, an honour, I have very great memories of the stadium, the supporters, the people, the club,” he says.
“I’m very happy to be here again and I hope we can enjoy the game. I’m expecting a game with quality, a lot of talent inside the pitch, with two teams that want to play in a good way and with quality – and a fantastic atmosphere, for sure.”
