Udinese to face Nottingham Forest in Udine triangular friendly on Saturday, 8 August
Udinese and Nottingham Forest will meet at Bluenergy Stadium in Udine, Italy, on Saturday, 8 August, as part of a triangular pre-season tournament that consists of three 45-minute games alongside FC Barcelona. The fixture is a club-friendly tie in which the two sides will play a 45-minute match against one another.
Udinese arrive having finished tenth in Serie A last season and are without a win in their last five matches, including three recent friendly outings and a defeat to Trabzonspor. Jordan Zemura and Simone Pafundi have been sent on loan and the club have not made any major signings ahead of this match. The team is managed by German gaffer Kosta Runjaic, who has previously been at the helm of teams like Legia Warszawa and Darmstadt.
Nottingham Forest endured a poor domestic campaign last season and have appointed UECL-winning gaffer Oliver Glasner from Crystal Palace, who will be keen to bring Champions League football to Nottinghamshire. Forest are coming off a 4-1 loss to Sporting CP, have secured a contract extension for Ibrahim Sangare with the UEL semi-finalists, and have seen Elliot Anderson move to Manchester City.
Form lines provided for both sides list Udinese (in all competitions): L-D-L-L-L and Nottingham (in all competitions): L-W-W-D-L, reflecting recent mixed results for Forest and a run of defeats and draws for Udinese. The Udine outfit are reported as winless in their last five games ahead of this encounter.
A French defender in Udinese’s squad is described as having developed at the Lyon youth academy and having played for Laval and RB Salzburg before joining Udinese in 2025; the club report him as a solid presence in their backline and label him the most valuable player in the squad. He is slated to face Nottingham’s striking pair of Igor Jesus and Chris Wood. Separately, the report describes a Brazilian striker from Mato Grosso who previously played for Botafogo and Shabab Al Ahli before moving to Nottingham Forest; he recorded 21 goal contributions in over 50 games last season, won the Copa Libertadores in Brazil and was one of Forest’s highest goal contributors as the club reached the UEFA Europa League semi-finals in 2025-26.
Injury news lists Jürgen Ekkelenkamp and Alessandro Zanoli as set to miss Udinese’s next game due to injury concerns, while Nottingham are without Murillo and Callum Hudson-Odoi and Nicolò Savona is unlikely to feature. The projected starting XIs named are: Edoardo Piana (GK); Enzo Ebosse, Oumar Solet, Thomas Kristensen; Idrissa Gueye, Sandi Lovrić, Oier Zarraga, Matteo Palma; Lennon Miller, Vakoun Issouf Bayo; Adam Buksa for Udinese, and Matz Sels (GK); Zach Abbott, Nikola Milenković, Jair Cunha; Neco Williams, Nicolás Domínguez, Morgan Gibbs-White, James McAtee, Ola Aina; Igor Jesus, Chris Wood for Nottingham Forest.
The match will be a single 45-minute game and the preview anticipates a low-scoring encounter with Nottingham’s forward duo expected to start; the published prediction is Udinese 0-1 Nottingham Forest. The kick-off is scheduled for Saturday, 8 August, at 11:30 p.m. IST at the Bluenergy Stadium and the game can be streamed on Prime Video.
This meeting will be the first between these two clubs and forms one of the three 45-minute matches in the triangular pre-season tournament that also features FC Barcelona.
