Xaver Schlager on reuniting with Glasner at Forest: I want team-mates to feel free | OneFootball

Xaver Schlager has reunited with Oliver Glasner at Nottingham Forest, a link-up he long expected, and he is clear about his purpose: “I want to make my team-mates around me better, so they can feel free.”

According to NY Times, the pair stayed close after Wolfsburg, where Glasner led Europa League then Champions League qualification. The move followed the 28-year-old’s free-agent exit from RB Leipzig last month.

Speaking in Portugal at Forest’s camp, Schlager said the timing felt right after seven years in the Bundesliga and that he rejected other options to join Glasner. He sees a natural fit with the 3-4-2-1 and Red Bull school, and he started all four of Austria’s matches at this summer’s World Cup.

On Glasner, he said: “He’s really straight. He knows his tactics, he has a plan, and he wants to do this.” Both also have RB Salzburg on their CVs, which underpins Schlager’s belief that players improve under him.

He resists self-promotion, calling himself hard-working and keen to keep the game in the opposition half. He avoids kick and rush, prefers to play smart and fast in his head, and sees leadership as a shared duty.

Away from football he reads psychological literature, especially Hermann Hesse. Golf offers quiet, while back home he helps run a party-bus firm and a restaurant with his father and a partner.

He says he has joined Forest because he believes reuniting with Glasner can deliver success, after a 3-0 last-32 defeat by Spain.

Source: NY Times