“I WENT TO GAMES AND SANG THE SONGS. TODAY, I ONLY THINK OF WINNING TROPHIES”

Bruno Fernandes used to spend his weekends bouncing on Boavista’s terraces – now, he’s Manchester United’s greatest hope since Eric Cantona. Can the Portuguese star get the Red Devils back on their perch? He tells FFT there’s nothing else on his mind...

Words Andy Mitten

  "I was a mini ultra,” Bruno Fernandes tells Four Four Two, as a grin flashes across his face. “I used to go and watch Boavista games when I was a boy. I was the ball boy, and then a mini ultra behind the goal. I like the atmosphere of the ultras when it’s expressed in the right way. I like to be part of the atmosphere when they try to push the players on and motivate them.”

Boavista are based in Porto and Fernandes grew up in Maia, six miles north of Portugal’s second city.

“I’m a Boavista supporter and started to watch them play because of my cousin, Vitor Borges, who came through the youth system to make their first team. I wanted to follow him and make the same steps. He’s 36 now, a right-back. I used to be a defender as well – unluckily for me I was a centre-back until I was 15! I didn’t score a lot of goals then… but I’m scoring now.”

He can say that again. Life as a professional footballer and Manchester United’s talisman was a long way down the line in those days, but that meant Fernandes could still attend matches as a fan.

“I’d go to games and sing the songs,” he remembers. “I didn’t have a hero as a player, they were just my dad and my brother – they both played football too.”

The 26-year-old grew up in a household soaked in football culture. “Boavista’s derby is against Porto,” he explains to FFT. “A long time ago, they were league champions [in 2001, after which they played United in two Champions League games, losing both 3-0] and the atmosphere was much better there. Now, you would see more Porto fans than Boavista fans in their own stadium. But the Estadio do Bessa is really beautiful... it’s an English-style stadium.”

Fernandes doesn’t talk to the media much – when he does, it’s often in short snippets for television stations looking for soundbites on current form and the next game. It’s why the Portuguese midfielder is so keen to speak more about his football upbringing off the pitch with FFT, revealing how the atmosphere in his home country compares with grounds on English shores.

“In Portugal, the atmosphere is intense,” he continues. “We have ultras in Portugal and in Italy also, where I played for five seasons. They are more passionate than rational. In Italy, it’s more passionate like Portugal. The supporters live through football. For them, it’s expressed in the game.

“In England, I feel like the people come to enjoy the game as a show, like the theatre or the cinema. The atmosphere is more clean. But in England, every game is played in a full stadium – it doesn’t matter which team you play against. The atmosphere is really good and it’s nice to feel it.”

Fernandes has transformed United’s fortunes

RED MOON RISING

Bruno Fernandes had only been playing in England for six weeks when lockdown hit, after his £47 million transfer from Sporting to Manchester United was finally completed in late January 2020.

In that short period through February and early March, however, the schemer became a much-needed hero for a side desperately seeking one, and quickly convinced United fans that he was exactly what they needed.

Fernandes didn’t take long to show what lay ahead at Old Trafford, demonstrating in the opening five minutes of his debut against Wolves that he was different from the rest. For starters, he could move the ball towards something that had been eluding United’s attackers: the goal.