One year from heartbreak, Antonio Nusa has a point to prove

It’s January 2024. Deadline day moves at a pace few can follow. In Bruges, a teenager is told his life is about to change: he’s wanted by the Premier League. Tottenham Hotspur are circling but Brentford are closer. Twenty-five million pounds are on the table and it has to happen now.

Antonio Nusa’s move to west London was reported as agreed by the buzzing cacophony of usual outlets. The storm was intense, as it always is: here was England’s darling of under-the-radar recruitment, the guys who’d discovered Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa in France, who’d plucked the Danish duo of Mikkel Damsgaard and Christian Nørgaard from continental Europe and transformed them into English stalwarts, turning again to a Scandinavian talent; here was the next big thing.

Then… silence.

Nusa was still at Club Brugge when the window closed. Brentford’s medical had reportedly uncovered issues with the winger’s knees and back and the club pulled out of the deal at the last moment. The 18-year-old was left in Bruges to figure out what had happened, and to come to terms with an elite football club telling him his body was broken.

It’s been more than a year since that moment. Today, on a grey March morning in a compound tucked within a park in Cottaweg, Nusa sits across from me on a bright red couch. He's wearing sliders, and into his socks he's tucked the training gear of his new employers: RB Leipzig.

“I'm sure you know about the situation. I don't think I need to explain what it was,” he says with a casual deadpan. There’s no suggestion of discomfort in his voice, no ghosts.

“I was 18 at that time. It's heavy on the mind to deal with this stuff. But I think in football you need to experience those things. I feel like I handled it well. I think it made me stronger.”