I never wanted to leave Nottingham Forest but it's been one of the best decisions I've ever made

As Charlotte FC close in on the MLS play-offs and Harry Toffolo looks forward to an appointment with Lionel Messi, or at least his kids do, his decision to leave Nottingham Forest looks to have paid off handsomely.

The 31-year-old is coming towards the end of his first campaign in the United States and his first season since ending a three-year relationship that saw the Reds stabilise, if anything at the City Ground can ever said to be stable, after their return to the Premier League.

To be fair to Toffolo his year has been affected by a couple of hamstring injuries, the first cost him five games in the lead-up to the World Cup break, the second saw him miss six weeks in the build-up to the current international window.

Toffolo started the final game before the hiatus, a home loss to Chicago, and is now raring to finish 2026 on a high. Seven matches remain, Charlotte sit fourth in the Eastern Conference and look well placed to reach the post-season once more.

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Head coach Dean Smith will hope his team has that wrapped up before the final fixture, an encounter with Inter Miami and Messi in early November. It will be the first time the left-back has crossed paths with an opponent he describes as The Greatest.

“My kids tell me every day they want to go to that game,” Toffolo tells Nottingham Post. “The Goat of football, it's like even when I was at Forest, we looked at certain games in the Premier League, the teams we wanted to play and they're the same in the MLS.

“You've obviously got the DPs [Designated Players] that keep coming over now, the top players, they're exciting to play against, but it's almost like just another team, it's not like the Premier League where you can have 11 DPs. There's only three of them.

"So we've got to make sure that we can nullify their threat, but also take advantage of their weaknesses. He [Messi] deserves the recognition, he's unbelievable and I love that video where he was getting some stick off the fans and then he just put it in the back of the net.

“It just shows the ability he has to still be doing it at his age, what a player and what an incredible servant of football around the world. I'm looking forward to that day, hopefully, it’s something that I never thought I'd get the opportunity to do.”

As long as the old hammies hold up.

If they do Toffolo will be a key player for a team that has reached the play-offs the last three seasons but has never made it past the first round.

Led by Smith, former Aston Villa man Ashley Westwood and including the likes of Allan Saint-Maximin and Tim Ream, they are once again knocking on the door.

“I think this is the best squad we have ever had, probably in the club's history, so it's exciting and we're looking forward to what's going to come.

"There's going to be so many big games, we're playing a lot of teams up and around it, which is going to be a good test. But ultimately you have to beat those teams because you're going to be facing them if we inevitably do make the playoffs.”

Matches against Dallas, this weekend, Philadelphia and of course Miami stand out and convince Toffolo he has made the right decision to move on from Forest and try something else.

On one hand it was not a straightforward choice, on the other – having featured in only four Premier League games in the 2024/25 season – even as contract talks went on it was glaringly obvious.

“I think Forest wanted to do something else and get something sorted, but I think I wanted to go and play football. I had played games but was more of a fringe player and just as a professional I wanted to go and be starting week in, week out.

“I never really wanted to leave Forest, it's a club that I'm very fond of, my kids actually support Forest, I grew up a Chelsea fan but they're big Forest fans, just because it was an integral part of their growing up, going to the City Ground and seeing stuff like that.

“I'd not been a free agent since I was 22, so you're not really sure what's happening and we weighed up all the options and something I've always wanted to do was play in America and this opportunity came up. Obviously having the gaffer here, having the same agent as Ashley Westwood, who's the captain, and it almost fell to us.

“Me and the wife came out, we had a look around, found the school, found the house and we were like ‘We could see ourselves living here’. And I think it's one of the best decisions we've ever made in terms of the kids have thrived here.

“I think they've grown up, they've matured in such a quick time and as a dad, which is first and foremost when all this ends, I'll be their dad, that's the thing I prioritised in all of this, making sure my kids have the best possible start to life. We've been given that in Charlotte.

“It's exciting because you've never been to places but you forget that you could probably fit North Carolina across the whole of the UK, so when you think you can plan a day out, you're driving three hours to do something, but there is also a lot of stuff nearby that you can do with the kids and like I said, they absolutely love it.

“The weather's hot, we're going into fall now here, which is awesome, I was actually able to push the kids on the swing yesterday at home for the first time in a few months, because it's literally been around 35 degrees-plus every day – and it just gets hotter and hotter throughout the day.

“We've done a few of the beaches, we've obviously ventured off to Nashville, we've done places like New York and Orlando. These are all places that are an hour’s flight, the scale of America's huge, but it's definitely something that's exciting because there's so many places we want to visit.”

Recently a little corner of Nottingham visited Charlotte and Toffolo says he is still in touch with the likes of Ryan Yates, Morgan Gibbs-White and some bloke called Elliot Anderson.

“There are players that I always look out for, good people, but there's been obviously a turnover of players and then the fresh crop comes in.

"I had Miltos Marinakis out for a game, so I had a good chat with him and it was nice to see a familiar face from back home, we were talking about the different things going on at Forest, asking about the lads and different things.”

Different is certainly one adjective that can be applied to the occupant of head coach’s office. Oliver Glasner is the latest incumbent, the fifth in a year and one Toffolo likes.

“He's a great manager, he's a manager that I'd love to have played for at Forest, he's got a great reputation and someone that I think is going to do really well.”

He is not, though, someone who can offer Toffolo and his four excitable children, all aged under-10, an evening with Lionel Messi.