The January transfer window was a very strange one for Brentford, who appeared to be on the verge of signing Antonio Nusa from Club Brugge for €37m at one stage.
That deal eventually fell through after some issues were discovered in the player’s knee, with that money instead being spent on Igor Thiago, who will join the Bees in the summer.
Since then, Antonio Nusa has been very quiet about everything that happened with the failed Brentford transfer, but opened up on international duty to Nettavisen.
Still under contract with the Belgian side until 2027, the 18-year-old might have missed out on a move to the Premier League, but he’s also glad his health is fine.
He said: “I was close to going to Brentford, that’s the truth. Then it didn’t happen for a number of complicated reasons. There was a lot of fuss about it, a difficult time. I’ll be honest with you, so many things happened that I didn’t expect to happen. It became known on social media as well, but yes, that’s life. Now I’m just happy and glad that I was able to go through it and learn the things I saw.”
Nusa added: “We wanted to find an explanation for what it really was as quickly as possible and got good help in Norway from Ola (Sand) and the team. We found a good solution and had it thoroughly checked. So it’s not something I need to stress about.”
However, the winger made it clear that doing all these tests and getting to the bottom of things had nothing to do with proving anything to Brentford.
He said: “No, no, they had their concerns and that’s fine. It wasn’t about that at all. The first priority was to look after the body, that there was no stress about it. That was the focus, not to disprove anything. To make sure I was healthy, that was the important thing.”
Nusa also echoed all of this in an interview with VG, where he talks about the concerns he and Brentford had: “So they got a little worried. That’s okay. We were worried of course. Something wasn’t right. It was important to get to the bottom of it. We’ve done that now.”
Asked if he ever feared the worst, meaning an end to his career, the 18-year-old admitted: “Yes. It’s about health. As a footballer, you want to be 100%. I was afraid there was something wrong with my body. Those were difficult times, but it wasn’t really a problem. That’s what we found out.”
