Nottingham Forest snap up two young Cyprus players after academy trip

FIRST division side Nottingham Forest announced this week that two talented Cypriot youngsters will be heading to the club’s UK academy this year, to take the first steps toward their dreams of football stardom.

16 year old Andreas Kalos and 15 year old Andreas Christophidis Drakou were picked from seventy young hopefuls who attended the club’s soccer skills camp organised by Paphos football academy, Olympico earlier this month.

Nottingham Forest youth development coaches spent two weeks training at the Olympico academy and it was made clear early on that they would be looking for gifted youngsters.
“Ultimately we want players”, admitted coach Paul Bourne, “We come out here, we offer a service and work with the local kids and hopefully we’ll find a player from here”, he added.

The young footballers will have to work hard at the club’s Wilford Lane academy in Nottingham, and the Forest coaches warned that the boys will have to adapt quickly to the pace of the game in England.

“They will find the game is very fast, probably twice as fast as they play here and with that pace comes injuries,” he cautioned.

The game and British players will be much tougher opponents than the boys have faced here in Cyprus.

“It’s very physical, players are tight to each other; kicking each other. Here in Cyprus it’s not so rough”, agreed the two English coaches.

The boys are the latest success story for the Olympico Academy which has already sent six gifted youth players to play in the UK over the past seven years.
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