Daniel Munoz Nottingham Forest was the signing that told you what kind of team Oliver Glasner intends to build. Forest spent the whole of the summer chasing a right-sided defender, were knocked back in three separate markets, and then, on the final day of the window, paid a reported £22m to Crystal Palace for the one player their head coach did not need to research. This is the guide to the Colombian.
Who is Daniel Munoz?
Munoz was born in May 1996 in Amalfi, a small town in Colombia’s Antioquia region, which makes him 30 – an age that reads differently for a wing-back than it does for most positions. This is a role built on repeat sprints, and Forest have bought a player at the point where his engine is proven rather than promised.
He came up through the Colombian game the hard way, breaking through at Rionegro Aguilas before a move to Atletico Nacional, the biggest club in Medellin and one of the most decorated in South America. That was the platform. In January 2020 he left for Belgium and KRC Genk, and Europe is where his career properly began.
Genk, and the road to the Premier League
Four years in the Belgian top flight turned a raw, athletic full-back into a specialist. Munoz won the Belgian Cup with Genk in 2021 and became one of the most productive attacking full-backs in the division – not a defender who occasionally overlapped, but a genuine source of crosses and chances from wide areas.
Crystal Palace signed him in January 2024 for a reported fee in the region of £8m, and he adapted to the Premier League immediately. Within months he was a fixture at Selhurst Park, and when Glasner settled on a back five, Munoz became one of the two players the entire shape depended on.
What followed was the most successful period in Palace’s history. Munoz was in the side that won the FA Cup in May 2025, beating Manchester City 1-0 at Wembley for the club’s first major trophy, and in the team that added the Community Shield the following August. For a Forest supporter, the relevant detail is not the medals themselves but where they were won from: the right of a three-four-two-one, running the touchline for ninety minutes, in the exact system now being installed at the City Ground.
He has also been a regular for his country. Munoz was part of the Colombia squad that reached the 2024 Copa America final, losing to Argentina after extra time.
Daniel Munoz Nottingham Forest: how the transfer happened
Forest’s pursuit of a right-sided defender ran through most of August. Bids for Fiorentina’s Dodo were rejected, Newcastle turned down two offers for Jacob Murphy, and a move for Everton’s Harrison Armstrong reached an advanced stage before collapsing entirely. With hours of the window left, the Reds went back to a league and a player their head coach knew inside out.
Interest first surfaced on 27 August, and the structure firmed up quickly. According to The Athletic, as relayed by the Nottingham Post, Forest’s offer was an initial £20m plus a further £2m in add-ons, with Munoz having two years left on his Palace contract. The deal was completed on 31 August, the day before the window shut at 11pm on 1 September. He was Forest’s fifth first-team arrival of a summer that cost roughly £101m in total, as our guide to the 2026 ins and outs sets out.
How he plays
Munoz is a wing-back rather than a full-back, and the distinction matters. Three things define him:
- Volume. He covers ground relentlessly and repeatedly, up and down the same channel, which is the non-negotiable requirement of the role in a back five.
- Arriving in the box. He is a genuine threat at the back post rather than a decorative overlap, and he crosses early and often.
- Aggression in the duel. He defends the touchline honestly and confrontationally. He also plays on the edge and collects his share of bookings – the flip side of the same trait.
What he is not is a technician who wants to come inside and play through the lines. Ask him to invert into midfield and you are asking the wrong question of the player. Ask him to make the pitch as wide as the laws allow for ninety minutes and he is among the best in the division at it.
Where he fits under Glasner
Glasner, appointed head coach on 6 July 2026, works with a 3-4-2-1: a back three, two wing-backs, two attacking midfielders and a lone striker. As we explained in our breakdown of that formation at the City Ground, the wing-backs are not a detail of the system – they are the system. They supply the width, they carry the ball up the pitch, and without them a compact block has no way of turning defence into attack.
Forest’s opening weeks made the case for themselves: organised, hard to break down, and desperately short of anyone stretching an opposition defence. Munoz is the answer to that specific problem.
The competition is real. Neco Williams, who signed a new contract to 2030 on 5 September, can play either flank, and Nicolo Savona and Ola Aina give Glasner further options on the right. Where each of them sits is laid out in our 2026/27 squad numbers guide. But Munoz arrives with two years of doing this exact job for this exact coach, and that is a head start nobody else in the building has.
The season so far
Forest are still waiting for a first win of 2026/27. Two points from three Premier League games – a 0-1 home defeat to Leeds United, a 2-2 draw at Liverpool in which Dan Ndoye and Morgan Gibbs-White scored, and a goalless draw with Tottenham Hotspur on 5 September where Williams had a goal disallowed for handball after a VAR check – is not the start anybody wanted, and a 0-2 home loss to Leeds ended the Carabao Cup run in the second round.
The Reds travel to Aston Villa at Villa Park at 3pm on Saturday, once the September international break clears. Villa will be without summer free transfer Leon Goretzka, who has confirmed he is sidelined until after the break.
The verdict
Signings that follow a manager from his last club carry an obvious risk: sentiment dressed up as strategy. This one is the opposite. Munoz is not a favour to Glasner but the missing component of a shape Forest have been trying to play without a specialist in one of its two most important positions. He has an FA Cup medal won from precisely this role and needs no bedding-in period. Of the five players Forest added this summer, he may be the one who makes the least noise and the most difference.
Squad details and shirt numbers are confirmed via the official Nottingham Forest website, with appearance and Premier League records on the Premier League’s official site and international caps through the Colombian Football Federation.
