Archive May 21, 2025

Both clubs will realize that things could have been very different when Bruno Fernandes takes Manchester United over Tottenham in the Europa League final on Wednesday in Bilbao.

Fernandes was all set to join Spurs under Mauricio Pochettino six months prior to the Portuguese midfielder signing for £47 million from Sporting in January 2020.

The deal was all but done, after five meetings with his entourage and Spurs left Fernandes and his people impressed with the north London club’s structure.

According to a source familiar with the discussions, “they were absolutely next level in terms of detail.”

“Even the training grounds’ rooms were decorated the same way that the players’ bedrooms at home, which they share with their partners,” said one player.

” The bed was exactly the same. The garden’s flowers left a powerful scent that was intended to be beneficial, which was mind-blowing.

“Sporting were going to accept it even though there were only two weeks left in the window.”

The club board, however, changed their mind, holding out for an offer twice as big that never arrived. They made the decision to sell Raphinha to Rennes in the wake of the transfer window closing, and the result was a draw in Monaco during the Europa League match.

When Sporting President Frederico Varandas arrived to explain the situation, Fernandes was so persuaded that he would be traveling to north London that he demanded to leave.

For a while, he found himself in a bad place mentally.

It was one of those reality-checking moments.

Fernandes was immediately inserted into Manchester United’ starting lineup for a goalless draw against Wolves at Old Trafford in February 2020 after only one training session with the team.

The former Sporting midfielder recognised several familiar faces from the Portuguese league on the opposite side that day – but something didn’t quite click.

These young men in Portugal used to play with me. He said to himself during his first game, “It can’t be that they’re outrunning me now.”

Struggling to cope with the intensity, he was relieved when the fourth official held up the substitution board with the number eight in the 88th minute.

He realized he was no longer wearing Juan Mata’s as he approached the touchline while in pain as he walked away from the line of sight.

Perhaps this was the only time in his United career that he had been so desperate to leave.

Much has changed since then for the man who recently said, “he can rest when he dies”.

Fernandes, who was once known as the club’s most successful signing in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era, now wears the captain’s armband in a tribute to his father and hero, Jose Fernandes, who wore it when he was a player, is widely regarded as the team’s most successful signing of the 1980s.

The 30-year-old will be hoping to win his first major international trophy with the team on Wednesday night and help end a very frustrating domestic campaign with 38 goals and 19 assists in 54 games this season.

He has become the heart and lungs of Ruben Amorim’s side.

No driver’s license was ever a problem for someone who spent his entire life chasing buses around the Porto region.

“He was a little genius from a humble family,” Abilio Novais, one of his earliest mentors at Boavista, told BBC Sport.

“You could see he wanted to make it so bad. He detested losing, and he detested it very much. He would cry for a long time. But that fire, that edge… It was obvious. Sooner or later, he was required to play football.

Fernandes is well known for being open to opinions, but it didn’t just develop as he matured. It has always existed.

His parents discovered that while discussing moving the whole family to Switzerland.

Portugal was experiencing its worst recession in a generation in the late 2000s. Jose, Bruno’s father, lost his job and had no other options besides emigrate, like many others.

The original idea was never for him to go alone, but to take his wife and three children with him.

Bruno rose up the Boavista youth ranks and threatened to flee if the idea was rejected.

He argued that “they don’t know how to play football in Switzerland.” “I’m at a crucial phase at the club”.

In the end, he prevailed, but that required five years of separation from his father.

He describes it as the worst time in his youth because Jose would frequently stand up for him and disappear. If the midfielder is such a compelling leader in the United dressing room, it’s largely because of this influence in his life.

“I let everyone know this,” No one actually does it when I walk around my hometown. But my dad says hello to everyone”, he explained in an interview with his former team-mate Afonso Figueiredo in the podcast Entrelinhas.

He says, “He greets everyone with a good morning. My mother and I frequently ask him, “Do you even know that person?” And he’ll go, ‘ No. ‘ So we ask, “Then why did you say good morning?” And he simply says, “Well, the man passed by, looked at me, and I said good morning.”

Novais, a former Porto footballer, is a renowned legend in Portugal as a former boss of Boavistas.

Decade, a former Portugal and Barcelona midfielder, and Fernandes made it abundantly clear from the beginning that they could follow a similar path and rise to the top of their respective careers.

Not because he had an out-of-this-world talent – that was impossible to tell at that point – but because he had the determination to work harder than anyone else.

Novais responded, “He already had something about him. He obviously had such a bad taste.

“He was a kid who genuinely wanted to become a professional. Around 4:30 p.m., he taught on Wednesdays while we trained at Boavista. He would arrive at around 2: 30 pm to train alone with our goalkeeping coach Petronilho, who would schedule an one-hour session with him before he left for school.

” I’d get there and ask Petronilho, ‘ So, how did he do? ‘ And he would leave, “Mister,” he ran, he worked, and he carried out. The boy is only interested in training. He had such a passion for the game. “

As Bruno began to draw attention from abroad as he played every position on the pitch but the goalkeeper, none of which went unnoticed.

Fernandes could have followed the same path as his older brother Ricardo, who had immigrated to England to work as a hospital assistant.

He was 17 and had two offers on the table: one from Middlesbrough and another from Novara in Italy.

“Those two teams had a chance,” he said. However, with Novara, things eventually got better and the best conditions. They had an academy where I could sleep, where I had food, and where my mum felt more comfortable with me going, “Fernandes revealed.

It ultimately turned out to be the right choice.

Fernandes established himself and lived out his dream of bringing his father back from Switzerland after earning the nickname “The Maradona of Novara” and moving to the United States and then to Sampdoria.

Even though he was already captaining Portugal’s under-21 side, he still flew under the radar among his compatriots.

Only when he signed with Sporting in the summer of 2017 was he truly a household name.

The Alvalade sensation had just finished the 2018-19 campaign with 33 goals and 18 assists, surpassing Frank Lampard’s record with Chelsea, making for the most prolific goalscoring season by a midfielder in Europe.