Joseph Adrian Worrall (born 10 January 1997) is an English professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who captains and plays as a

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

for club

Nottingham Forest Nottingham Forest Football Club is an association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. Nottingham Forest was founded in 1865 and have been playing their home games at the City Ground, on the banks of the River Tren ...

. He has also represented England at youth level, and captained the England squad that won the

2017 Toulon Tournament The 2017 Toulon Tournament (officially french: 45ème Festival International "Espoirs" – Tournoi Maurice Revello) was the 45th edition of the Toulon Tournament. The tournament was named after Maurice Revello, who started the tournament in 1967 a ...

Early life and career

Joseph Adrian Worrall was born on 10 January 1997 in

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...

, Nottinghamshire. He started playing football for Kimberley Miners' Welfare at the age of eight, before playing for Priory Celtic when moving to

Watnall Watnall is an area in the Borough of Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire, England. It is part of Greasley civil parish, and is located one mile north of Kimberley. It is in the Nuthall West and Greasley (Watnall) ward of Broxtowe Council. The village ...

and Hucknall Sports when moving to

Hucknall Hucknall, formerly Hucknall Torkard, is a market town in the Ashfield district of Nottinghamshire, England. It lies 7 miles north of Nottingham, 7 miles south-east of Kirkby-in-Ashfield, 9 miles from Mansfield and 10 miles south of Sutton-in ...

Club career

Worrall signed with

in October 2011, rejecting interest from other local sides,

Derby County Derby County Football Club () is a professional association football club based in Derby, Derbyshire, England. In 2022, it was announced that DCFC was acquired by Clowes Developments (UK) Ltd, a Derbyshire-based property group. Founded in 1884 ...

and

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National ...

. Worrall joined

League Two The English Football League Two (often referred to as League Two for short or Sky Bet League Two for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League Two from 2004 until 2016) is the third and lowest division of the English Football Lea ...

club

Dagenham & Redbridge Dagenham & Redbridge Football Club is a professional association football club based in Dagenham, Greater London, England. The team competes in the National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system. Often known simply as Dag ...

on 8 January 2016 on a one-month loan deal. He made his professional debut the next day in a third-round

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

tie against Everton, which Dagenham & Redbridge lost 2–0, and scored his first professional goal on 23 January in a 2–2 draw away to Newport County. Worrall made his first-team debut for Forest on 29 October 2016 at

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

and, despite losing the game 2–0, his performance was praised as "strong" and "decisive" by the ''

Nottingham Post The ''Nottingham Post'' (formerly the ''Nottingham Evening Post'') is an English tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper which serves Nottingham, Nottinghamshire and parts of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire. The ''Post'' is p ...

''. He revealed that he had been frustrated with the quality of Forest's defending that season and pulled manager

Philippe Montanier Philippe Jacques William Montanier (born 15 November 1964) is French professional Association football, football manager and former player who is the head coach of club Toulouse FC, Toulouse. As a player, he was as a Goalkeeper (association footb ...

aside to ask for a chance in the first team. Montanier simply replied "OK, you play against Reading on Saturday". On 19 November, Worrall started alongside

Damien Perquis Damien Albert René Perquis (born 10 April 1984) is a former professional footballer and current assistant coach of Gazélec Ajaccio's B-team. A defender, he represented France at youth level, before acquiring Polish citizenship and playing f ...

and

Matt Mills Matthew Claude Mills (born 14 July 1986) is an English retired professional footballer who played as a defender. He spent most of his career in the English EFL Championship, in which he played for Leicester City, Reading, Bolton, Nottingham ...

in a three-man defence as Forest earned their first away win and

clean sheet In team sports, a shutout ( US) or clean sheet ( UK) is a game in which one team prevents the other from scoring any points. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketball. Shutouts are usuall ...

of the season at

Ipswich Town Ipswich Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. They play in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in 1878 but did not turn profession ...

. His performance led to Worrall being included in the Football League's Team of the Week and comparisons to former Forest and England defender Michael Dawson. He also received praise from manager Philippe Montanier, who described the centre-back as "strong and tall, but very clever too, tactically". Worrall's performances were noticed by

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

clubs, with Everton and

Stoke City Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which competes in the . Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, it changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Stoke ...

reportedly tracking the centre-back. On 27 February 2017, Worrall signed a three-and-a-half-year contract to extend his stay with Nottingham Forest until 2020. Then later that year, after his success with England at the Toulon Tournament, he signed a further extension until 2022. On 31 August 2018, Worrall joined

Scottish Premiership The Scottish Premiership, known as the cinch Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is the top division of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL), the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottish ...

club

Rangers A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to: * Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting and ...

on loan until the end of the 2018–19 season. Worrall did not wish to go out on loan, and turned down a move to Ipswich Town, but Forest manager

Aitor Karanka Aitor Karanka de la Hoz (Basque and ; born 18 September 1973) is a Spanish football manager and former player who was most recently the head coach of Segunda División club Granada. Save for a brief spell in the United States at age 32, Karanka ...

insisted that he needed more experience. Following his loan spell at Rangers, Worrall became a key player in the Nottingham Forest side under new manager

Sabri Lamouchi Sabri Lamouchi (born 9 November 1971) is a French football manager and former professional player who played as a midfielder. He was the manager of Qatar Stars League club Al-Duhail. Early life Lamouchi was born in Lyon, France, and is of Tuni ...

, with the defender starting every league game of the 2019–20 season. He signed a four-year contract extension in February 2020. During the 2021-22 season, Worrall regularly captained the Forest side during Lewis Grabban's absence through injury. He scored against

rivals A rivalry is the state of two people or groups engaging in a lasting competitive relationship. Rivalry is the "against each other" spirit between two competing sides. The relationship itself may also be called "a rivalry", and each participant o ...

during a 4-1

win. He played a key role in Forest's promotion to the

and captained them in their 1–0 Play-off final victory over

Huddersfield Town Huddersfield Town Association Football Club is a professional football club based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . The team have played home games at the Kirklees Stadium since moving from Leeds Road in 1994. The ...

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

. Worrall was also featured in that season's

EFL Championship The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the E ...

Team of the Season alongside teammates Ryan Yates and

Djed Spence Diop Tehuti Djed-Hotep Spence (born 9 August 2000) is an English professional footballer who plays as a right-back for Ligue 1 club Rennes, on loan from Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur. Early life Spence is the younger brother of actress ...

. On 4 August 2022, Worrall was named Forest's captain for their season in the

2022–23 Premier League The 2022–23 Premier League will be the 31st season of the Premier League, and the 124th season of top-flight English football overall. The provisional fixtures are scheduled to be released on Wednesday 15 June 2022. As of the 2022–23 season, c ...

International career

On 19 May 2017, Worrall was called up to the England representative squad for the

as a replacement for Charlton Athletic's Ezri Konsa, who had been promoted to the U20 squad for the

2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup The 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the 21st edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, the biennial international men's youth football championship contested by the under-20 national teams of the member associations of FIFA, since its inception in 1977 as ...

. Appointed as the team's captain, Worrall played four times and lifted the trophy as England defended their title on penalties after a 1–1 draw with the

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...

the final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

. Worrall was named the second-best player of the tournament after teammate David Brooks, who won the award. Following his impressive summer with

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, Worrall received his first call-up to the U21 squad on 24 August 2017 for their upcoming qualifying matches against their

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

and Latvian counterparts. Worrall was, however, left out of the squad against the Dutch and was an unused substitute in his team's 3–0 win over Latvia on 5 September.

Career statistics

Honours

Nottingham Forest *

EFL Championship play-offs The English Football League Championship play-offs are a series of play-off matches contested by the association football teams finishing from third to sixth in the EFL Championship table and are part of the English Football League play-offs. , t ...

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

England U20 *

Toulon Tournament The Toulon Tournament (officially the Festival International "Espoirs" – Tournoi Maurice Revello) is a football (training match) tournament, which traditionally features invited national teams composed of youth players from U-17 to U-23 level. ...

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

Individual *

Best XI:

Silver Ball:

Player of the Season:

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

* EFL Championship Team of the Season: 2021–22

References

External links

Profile
at the Nottingham Forest F.C. website {{DEFAULTSORT:Worrall, Joe 1997 births Living people People from Hucknall Footballers from Nottinghamshire Footballers from Nottingham English footballers Association football defenders Nottingham Forest F.C. players Dagenham & Redbridge F.C. players Rangers F.C. players English Football League players Scottish Professional Football League players Premier League players England youth international footballers England under-21 international footballers