Ah, Manchester United. What on Earth were you waiting for? For Bruno Fernandes’ exceptional quality, most clubs with their financial backing would have bitten Sporting CP’s hand off for the services of Bruno Fernandes for the fee they were asking for. Instead, fans of the Red Devils had to wait a further 5 months until he made the move to Old Trafford - and it’s fair to say he’s had quite the impact.
You could go further than that, of course. He has virtually single-handedly galvanised a team in desperate need of some inspiration. And no one, aboslutely no one, who knows anything at all about Bruno Fernandes is remotely surprised.
He is an exquisite example of two things: 1.) That top quality players in the Portuguese Primeira Liga are extraordinarily underrated purely because they ‘only’ play in what is officially the 6th best league in Europe. And 2.) Footballers can be world class and play in Portugal at the same time.
Bruno Fernandes scored an extraordinary 63 goals and bagged an equally phenomenal 52 assists across 137 matches for Sporting in all competitions, meaning he directly contributed to 115 goals in his two and a half years at the club. Not bad for a player that cost just £9million.
And Bruno Fernandes really is the perfect midfielder. An intelligent footballer, Fernandes has a tremendous footballing brain, which ultimately allows him to regularly makes the correct decisions and ensures that he can best exploit the opposition’s defensive weaknesses.
One major attribute that Fernandes possesses is his long-range shooting and passing ability. Innumberable times did Bruno Fernandes come up with the goods for Sporting to salvage the game for the Lisbon club - and often it was due to some impressive goals from around the edge of the box.
He’s a big-game player who single-handedly earned Sporting about 15 points in his last full season with the club. He may well need a chiropractor after having carried Sporting for so long - one can only imagine where they would have finished in the league standings if it weren’t for him and his goals and assists.
Fernandes has also shown excellent instincts and attacking movement, able to get in between the lines and find pockets of space to get into optimal positions to receive the ball.
This ensures that he’s a real focal point in attacking moves, collecting the ball before lifting his head and either running at the opposition or picking out a teammate with his vision and passing ability.
Is he world class? It seems unneccessary to answer, but Fernandes, as one of the most complete attacking midfielders currently in the game, simply has to be considered a world class talent.