Talk to people who watch Ousmane Diomande regularly and they will tell you he is a bigger fan of duels than Wild Bill Hickok — and that he has an equally impressive success rate.

In a similar mould to Nikola Milenkovic, he is a physical, combative and decisive figure. He is a defender who lives for defending.

Last season he was in the top percentile of players for his tackle success rate in Portugal’s Primeira Liga. Diomande has pace, strength and is comfortable on the ball — whether carrying it at his feet or passing it out from the back. But most of all he is a defender.

And he is the man who Oliver Glasner hopes can bring some of those qualities to Nottingham Forest.

Forest continue to work on a potential £35million ($48.1m) deal to bring the 22-year-old to the City Ground from Sporting CP. When Forest face the Portuguese giants in a friendly in the Algarve on Friday July 31, it is hoped he will have swapped allegiances long before.

#NFFC linked with a move for Sporting centre back Ousmane Diomande. Defensive action numbers fairly low but that’s to be expected at a top side.

Spent last season playing in a 2, but has significant experience in a 3 (mostly as the middle or right centre back).

Imagine the cost… pic.twitter.com/X7uBEIJM1v

— WT Analysis (@wt_analysis) July 20, 2026

The Ivory Coast international has experience of playing in a back four, with Sporting. But he is also very comfortable in a three.  Which is one of the reasons why Glasner has retained an interest in a player who was previously on the Austrian’s radar when he was head coach of Crystal Palace last season.

The message that Glasner has already delivered more than once to the media — that formation is less important than ethos — has been reflected in a far more important environment: within the Forest dressing room.

Glasner and his staff have put together lengthy video presentations to explain the identity he wants his Forest side to have. And it is one that, inescapably, starts with a back three.

Diomande may still be young but he has notched up 149 professional appearances, while collecting 16 international caps. He has won the league title twice with Sporting and was part of the Ivory Coast squad that won the Africa Cup of Nations in 2023. At Forest, he is seen as a missing piece of the jigsaw.

Oliver Glasner assesses our second successive pre-season victory. 🗣️

— Nottingham Forest (@NFFC) July 22, 2026

Within the microcosm of a 3-0 win over Blackburn Rovers in Forest’s second pre-season friendly, Glasner got to take a look at five of the six men who will fight it out for a place in his preferred back three.

Murillo was at the Estadio da Nora, but is still in the final stages of recovery from the hamstring problem that sidelined him at the end of last season. In the first half, Jair Cunha, Nikola Milenkovic and Morato formed the trio of central defenders. After the break, as Forest made 11 changes, it was Zach Abbott, Tyler Binden and Omar Richards. All impressed in different ways.

Catching up in Portugal. 🇵🇹 pic.twitter.com/90cEjK2frI

— Nottingham Forest (@NFFC) July 22, 2026

Jair contributed to the Forest goal, pressuring high up the pitch to help win back possession, before advancing purposefully right into the opposition penalty area, where he was tackled as he lined up to shoot. Morgan Gibbs-White was blocked in similar fashion before the ball rebounded for Igor Jesus, who slotted home.

“That was one of the things we have been working on — organising the defence so that we can get pressure on the ball,” said Glasner afterwards, in an interview with journalists.  “In that situation it was exactly what we want. Getting in the right area to win the ball… we do not just do it to defend, we also do it to score a goal.

“Honestly, it (defence) is where we have most of our work to do: the habits. In 60 per cent of the situations, we do well, but in other situations we fall into other habits. We need to work on our consistency and show them in training, so that they get used to how we want to defend.”

Forest regularly used a back three to see out games under Nuno Espirito Santo, but Steve Cooper, the man who led them to promotion in 2022, was the last to frequently use it as a starting point. But academy product Abbott says that, for the players, it does not represent as much of an adjustment as you might imagine.

Igor Jesus’ opener in Portugal. 🎯 pic.twitter.com/GipfBwtTUV

— Nottingham Forest (@NFFC) July 22, 2026

“There are loads of different tactical bits,” he says. “But formations are all very similar. When you are out there, you are constantly rotating. There are not always clear positions. Even in videos he (Glasner) says to us, ‘Yes, you are playing in a back three — but look at this situation…’ and it is now a back four. It is about how we want to go about playing; about our ethos.

“We just want to play in a way where we dominate the ball and, when we lose possession, we step up and read the game, so that we can get pressure on the ball.”

Abbott does not believe that it will be difficult for the established duo of Murillo and Milenkovic to adapt.  “They read the game so well. It does not matter what the formation is. They are top players,” says Abbott. “These are people I am looking up to and trying to learn from. But it is the reading of the game that is as important as anything else.”

If Diomande signs, he would naturally slot into the right-sided role, next to Milenkovic and Murillo. Then Forest would have Morato and the young trio of Jair, Abbott and Binden — if he does not head out on loan again.

Diomande was spotted when Midtjylland sporting director Kristian Kjaer found himself watching Ivorian league football and thought he saw raw talent. Diomande arrived for a trial without any boots but still impressed, in borrowed footwear, in a friendly against the Greenland national team. He signed for the Danish club in January 2022.

“I have a picture on my phone, it was snowing and he was wearing a big leather jacket and some slippers. One year later, we sold him to Sporting. It was like a fairytale,” said Kjaer in a previous interview with The Athletic.

Forest will hope that fairytale is about to get a fresh chapter at the City Ground.

Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic’s weekly sports business cheat sheet.

Name-dropped today: Gianni Infantino, Erling Haaland, LeBron James, Lionel Messi, Karl Ravech, Cathy Engelbert, Sophie Cunningham, Tom Brady, Jason Sudeikis, the Khoslas, Justin Bieber, Josh Kerr and more. Let’s go:

Driving the Conversation

Wrangling with World Cup takeaways

When the news broke last night that Sunday’s thrilling World Cup final was the most-watched soccer game ever televised in the U.S. — more than 60 million viewers across Fox and Telemundo, putting it in an elite stratosphere of attention reserved for the NFL — one takeaway from the 2026 World Cup was clear:

Everyone invested attention.

That’s a pretty good starting point for any analysis of this event. Beyond TV, fans spent money on tickets (and everything else), brands spent on marketing and, at least qualitatively, everyone seemed pretty satisfied with their ROI. (Especially FIFA.)

But I’m also left with a whole lot of questions. Helpfully, my colleagues have just reported out a foundation of some answers:

• We were in a familiar place after the U.S.-hosted World Cup in 1994. Very different moment in time, obviously, along with a very different infrastructure around soccer. But it was impactful. How might 2026 be different?

• “Hydration breaks” were the most evident change to the game’s dynamics, on the pitch and for Fox’s bottom line, with a windfall of ad revenues. Are “Americanized” innovations like the mid-half (a.k.a. “quarter”) breaks here to stay?

• The tournament created new mega-stars. To be sure: Erling Haaland was already a soccer star, but he elevated to a higher tier while in the U.S. What next for Brand Haaland?

• With all of this kinetic energy generated by tens of millions of fans in the U.S. becoming enraptured by soccer, can MLS (finally) capitalize? Or do we all turn our attention to these world-class players we just watched … in European leagues?

• And for all the frustrating ploys, has FIFA emerged stronger than ever? (Gianni Infantino seems certain to stay in power.)

Fan attention whiplashes pretty quickly. We’re already on to LeBron’s decision, NFL training camps and college football machinations. But we’ll always have the summer of 2026. I think it will stand as an indelible memory for an enormous number of fans.

And, sooner than you think, we’ll have the summer of 2028 in L.A.

Get Caught Up

Big talkers from the sports business industry:

New layoffs at ESPN: When ESPN acquired NFL Network in the deal that saw the league get 10 percent of ESPN, it was expected that the overlap between ESPN’s production capability and NFL Network (based across the country in L.A.) might yield to staff cuts. Those came yesterday. Among the notable on-air folks to be let go, long-timer Karl Ravech was a surprise to many.

LeBron Watch: Soon? (No?) As a flex of pure power and influence, this extended Decision has been one of the most impressive demonstrations in league history.

Betting expert Sam McQuillan published an interesting analysis on his Substack yesterday: LeBron’s decision has generated a $200 million-plus market across Kalshi and Polymarket, “more money than either platform has ever taken on an NBA game.” (And, as McQuillan noted yesterday, “despite months of trading, the market hasn’t reached anything close to consensus,” which is unusual.)

WNBA All-Star weekend: Engelbert’s last stand? In the latest “No Offseason” WNBA newsletter, Sabreena Merchant and Annie Costabile noted: “There is no bigger story heading into All-Star weekend than commissioner Cathy Engelbert’s job security.”

More: “What should be a season marked by memorable celebrations of the league’s 30th year has been marred by poor officiating, harassment issues and Engelbert’s seeming inability to be proactive in addressing any of it.” (PS: Subscribe to No Offseason here.)

Tennis stars’ prize money dispute, cont’d: The players have found a really clever wedge issue — participation in the wildly popular new U.S. Open mixed-doubles event.

MLB Opening Day 2027: March 24, the earliest ever. It’s quaint to put that out there, knowing the season’s start (if not its entirety) is in jeopardy.

The SEC’s “breakaway” options: “According to multiple sources, the idea is real and not just a leverage play. Still, if it happens, there are also ranges of how drastic an SEC breakaway would be.” Nuclear option? Mild option? Something in between? Seth Emerson has an awesome explainer on a topic I have been thinking about for years.

Other current obsessions: Tom Brady’s kayfabe era … Our Zapruder-style film breakdown of the World Cup final trophy presentation mayhem … 64-team World Cup hive, unite … the Sophie Cunningham “point” business implications … WFAN, WEEI, WIP coming to SiriusXM? I’ll hang up and listen … Lionel Messi tributes … my colleague Josh Kloke watching his kid watch the World Cup for the first time …

What I’m Wondering

Fanatics Fest, in review

After last week’s extensive MoneyCall discussion, the New York collectors event was indeed a cavalcade of celebrity appearances, corporate activations and collectibles haggling.

My colleagues were at the Javits Center, covering the entire weekend. What were their favorite parts?

• Larry Holder: “Old ‘Saturday Night Live’ compadres Jason Sudeikis and Seth Meyers competed in a card-buying challenge during Thursday’s opening night.”

• David Betancourt: “Tom Brady nailing a Steph Curry-esque logoman shot during the basketball portion of the Fanatics Games competition.”

• Brooks Peck: “The last thing I expected going into this event was to be standing next to an absolutely locked-in Justin Bieber as he dominated Fanatics Games challenges, but that’s what happened on Saturday.”

Grab Bag

Data Point: 52 seconds
That was the longest duration of an individual “Gooooool!” call by announcers on Telemundo throughout the World Cup. I know that because my colleagues on our data team tracked each individual goal call and then did all sorts of cool stuff with that.

One more: $5,619
Another banger from our data team: They got seven fans to share — in granular, line-item detail — how much it cost them to attend the World Cup. One example:

OK, one more absolutely incredible piece from our data-visualization team: They logged the kaleidoscope of fan reaction shots from TV and sorted them. Just take a minute to check this out.

Name to Know: Josh Kerr
Still wrapping my head around the 28-year-old Scot’s record-setting mile run last weekend, a boon for him and his lead sponsor, Brooks. (Here’s how he hit 3:42.66s.)

Kerr talked with my colleagues Liam Tharme and George Edwards. He told them what he thought was the defining moment of the race, when he heard the bell with 400m to go:

“There was a lot of negotiation with my own body and my mind. I wanted to go, but I knew it was not the right time to push, because I was running fast enough.”

One more: The Khosla family, name-dropped last week as the future/would-be owners of the Seattle Seahawks. Get more familiar with them, thanks to Nicki Jhabvala.

Beat Dan in Connections: Sports Edition
Puzzle No. 667
Dan’s time: 00:21
Try the game here!

Worth Your Time

Great business-adjacent reads for your downtime or commute:

A car crash nearly killed ESPN NFL Draft expert Matt Miller. Then came the fraud allegations.

Two more:

• MLB teams were using AI to make in-game decisions. I mean … did it actually help? Claude, should we throw the sinker or the splitter?

• One more interesting World Cup question: Looking ahead to 2030, there is a tussle between co-hosts Spain and Morocco over who will host the final. Who wins *that* battle?

Back next Wednesday! If you have any colleagues, friends or family who might enjoy this weekly analysis of the latest in money, power and attention in sports, can you text or email them this link to sign up to receive it in their inbox every Wednesday for free? And check out The Athletic’s other newsletters, too.