Before joining Forest in 2005 for £100,000 from Plymouth Argyle, David Friio was a crowd favourite at Home Park and they were sad to see him leave. But it’s not too unkind to say that his time on Trentside was a disaster.
He came with a reputation of being a goalscoring midfielder, where he bagged 44 goals in 185 appearances for the Pilgrims. But his time at Forest was a miserable one and he was limited to just 16 first team starts in his two years at the club.
He was one of Gary Megsons’ first signings and was seen as a bargain at the time. Friio and Megson soon fell out though and much of his time at the City Ground was spent in the wilderness. He retired at the tender age of 33 and started his coaching/football business in France.
He now works for Forest as well as other clubs and sends players for trials where he thinks they are best suited. Forest boss Colin Calderwood today told the official site. ‘David has been doing a sterling job for us, out in France. We have been looking at five or six players over there that he has introduced us to. David knows about the demands of English football, as well as about French football. It is a two-fold thing. There are a couple of games left in France and Spain, which we will look at. And there are tournaments like the Toulon tournament, where we very nearly took a couple of players last year.’
It now seems the former scapegoat could be paying back the Reds’ for his unsuccessful spell here as a player. We have had a couple of French gems here in the past that includes the likes of Darcheville and Bonalair, but a new Thierry Henry type wouldn’t go amiss. CC also says that they are looking at non league talents as well. If we get another Garath McLeary then that would be a boost for the clubs’ scouting system, which has had a bit of a barren spell in recent times.
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