What we learned from Forest's Europa League match

Football writer Alex Keble reflects on a historic night for Nottingham Forest, as they opened their UEFA Europa League campaign in Spain.

Nottingham Forest couldn’t quite claim victory on their first European night since 1996 but a frenetic 2-2 draw at Real Betis was proof that Ange Postecoglou’s side certainly belong at this level.

A trip to Seville is arguably Forest’s toughest game of the league phase and therefore, despite Postecoglou extending his winless run to four, he will be reasonably happy with the club’s start in the Europa League, the very tournament he won with Tottenham Hotspur last season.

A 15th-minute opener from Real Betis forward Cedric Bakambu did nothing to quash Forest’s spirit and within eight minutes they had turned the game around, Igor Jesus finishing a superb team move in the 18th minute before heading in from a corner in the 23rd minute.

Forest were well on top until half-time, playing swashbuckling "Ange-ball", but after Douglas Luiz was withdrawn at the break with a hamstring injury, they struggled to keep up the tempo and ultimately allowed the hosts back into the game, sinking deeper and deeper until former Manchester United winger Antony levelled the score in the 85th minute.

In a remarkable 10-minute blur of action at the Villamarin Stadium that contained the first three goals, we saw the best and the worst of Postecoglou football; all the reasons players and fans fall in love with it, and all the reasons why his football comes at a price.

There are two sides to the Postecoglou coin. Here, not for the first time, Forest saw them both.

Majestic first-half performance should make Forest fans very excited

There were long stretches of the first 45 minutes in Seville where Forest played with extraordinary bravery, flair, and beauty.

Betis were hit by a freight train and, made dizzy by the nutmegs, the backheels and the brilliant one-touch football. They simply could not cope with what they were facing.

Elliot Anderson and Douglas Luiz ran the midfield elegantly, while Forest’s quick passing moves sucked the home side inwards, making room for Oleksandr Zinchenko and Morgan Gibbs-White in the wide positions.

Add in Callum Hudson-Odoi, stitching it all together, and it made for a genuinely enchanting display; the kind that makes you realise why Postecoglou has inspired such devotion in Australia, Japan, and Scotland.

In fact, Anderson, Hudson-Odoi, and Gibbs-White were so comfortable dribbling past opponents and pulling off tricks, the thought occurred that maybe the Forest squad is actually better suited to a maverick like Postecoglou than the Spurs team ever was.

Certainly the Forest players showed they are up for the challenge - and ready to transition to all-out attacking football.

Jesus’s first goal in particular was the perfect Postecoglou moment: a long, flowing passing move orchestrated to exacting specifications that created space for Gibbs-White to supply Jesus with a tap-in.

“I thought our football was outstanding at times in the first half,” Postecoglou told TNT Sports after the game. “The wins will come if we keep playing our football like that.”

Forest supporters are left in no doubt it will be a lot of fun. But it won’t all go their team’s way.

Watch Forest players applaud their travelling fans at full-time

Tiring legs, a high line, and soft goals show the dangers of Ange-ball

Real Betis’s first goal was a simple pass over the top that caught the Forest defensive line too high, and it was a pass only made possible by a Forest press that was too easily broken.

It wasn’t exactly indicative of the first half, but nor was it the only time that Forest’s all-out pressing and high defensive line allowed Betis to counter-attack effectively.

A more optimistic take would be to say Bakambu’s goal was millimetres away from being ruled out for offside. It is those few millimetres that Postecoglou will be working on. The fine-tuning of his tactics will take time.

However, it’s a little worrying that Forest have conceded nine goals in four matches under Postecoglou.

We also saw Forest tire in the second half, albeit partly because Luiz was no longer there to control central midfield but perhaps also because Postecoglou’s football exhausts the players.

The game slowed down substantially, suiting the hosts, and by the end Forest were a little more like late-stage Postecoglou at Spurs.

In the opening 45 minutes, it had been more similar to those early months in north London, when Spurs won eight of their first 10 Premier League games and nobody knew how to react to their frenzied attacking football.

Which is the true Postecoglou? And which will define his time at Forest? Most likely both.

Igor Jesus is a great find who will push Wood for a starting spot

When your club spends a reported £10million on a 24-year-old striker who scored 17 goals in 59 games in all competitions for Brazilian club Botafogo, it's difficult to know what to expect early on.

Jesus’s brace in Seville was his second in successive starts following his double in the 3-2 defeat at Swansea City in the EFL Cup a week ago.

Incredibly, he becomes only the fifth player ever to score two or more goals in his first two starts for a Premier League club after Guy Whittingham (1994), Dion Dublin (1998), Marcus Rashford (2016), and Gabriel Martinelli (2019).

Jesus scored 17 in two years in Brazil. His four in a week at Forest means he’s already a quarter of the way to that total. At this rate, he will soon be pushing Chris Wood for a starting spot.