One by one, Bruno Fernandes introduced his teammates in the style of a talent show and invited them to sing, the leader of Manchester United enjoyed his role as Compere.
It was February 19. United's Squad and a number of staff members dined in the Brazilian restaurant Jardim Rodizio Grill in Altrincham after an evening spent Tenpin Bowling in Lane7, where the 50-plus party also played Pool and Darts.
Fernandes had organized everything and paid for himself. Eventually he was central to coaxing the new players to get up and carry out their initiation -songs -two January -Recreases, Patrick Dorgu and Ayden Heaven, and late summer sets such as Joshua Zirkzee, Matthijs de Ligt, Manuele and Noussair that they were too late Mazrai in the Mazrai, the Mazrai Mazrai, the Mazrai Mazrai, in the Mazrai Mazrai Vs.
Fernandes recognized the need for a team binding. A united side described by head coach Ruben Amorim, because possibly the worst in the history of the club had played as it in back-to-back Premier League defeats by Crystal Palace and Tottenham.
Moral was also low in club staff whose fears were about to be confirmed for 200 more.
So Fernandes made the bookings and sent the invitations, ensured that everyone is connected to the first team, including physiotherapy, sports science and travel departments.
“We got away from it and felt closer than we thought,” said an insider.
Three days later in Goodison Park it felt like it never happened. United was 2-0 to Everton during the break and was on track for a hat trick of competition nethereal that had played just as badly as always.
While they came forward for the second half, Former Everton Derek Mountfield, who had gone on the field during the interval to mark his induction in the club's Hall of Fame, that he would have a little pleasure by putting an elbow off against the players in red.
Fernandes, it's fair to say, did not see the funny side in the circumstances and Mountfield challenged what he felt a show of lack of respect towards United. Shot up, dragged his team back to the game with a 25-year free kick and eventually United took a point.
It was the first of seven goals and three assists of the 30-year-old in an unbeaten run of seven games for Amorim's side prior to Tuesday's visit to Nottingham Forest, apart from leaving the FA Cup on punishment to Fulham.
The 16 goals of Fernandes and 15 assists for the season have raised him alongside Eric Cantona, David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes as the only six united players who reach 50 goals and 50 assists in the Premier League era.
In total he now has 95 goals and 81 assists in 277 performances for United since he joined Sporting Lisbon in 2020, to 20th place in the club of the club of all time.
“It is still a long way to 121 for Andy Cole and 126 for Ole (Gunnar Solskjaer), but I hope to catch up with them,” he told MUTV in an interview during the international break.
“Cristiano (Ronaldo) is on 145 goals, very far away, but there is still time.”
The two penalties of Fernandes in his Europa League-Trick against Real Sociedad means that he has converted 36 of the 40 attempts from the place, more than every player in the history of United, because he has passed for Rooney and Ruud van Nistelrooy this season.
The statistics are all the more remarkable, since he did not score once before Erik ten Hag was fired at the end of October and was sent three times before the turn of the year.
But Fernandes is nothing, if not resilient. He turned his season and prevented United's became a total disaster. It is no surprise to see him for the Premier League Player of the Month Award for March.
But for some people it is not enough. Former United Captain Roy Keane has led the criticism of his leadership skills. 'Fifteenth in the competition and he saves them? Price the Lord! 'Last month a passionate Keane on the overlapp modcast.
'Bruno is a talented player, but talent is not enough. Bruno is not a hunter. '
When Fernandes spoke with Sky Sports after he picked up his husband from the Match Award in Leicester two weeks ago and was asked about criticism, he did not bare the issue.
“I clearly know you are talking about Roy Keane,” he said, holding the microphone before he shows a lot of respect – and restraint – to the Irishman.
“I accept that there is a lot of margin for improvement in my game, my leadership, everything I do, even in my own life.”
Others are eliminated by his petulance on the field: the constant arm waving, moaning with referees and calling his own teammates. Fernandes himself admits that he can come under their skin.
Even Amorim – with whom he promoted a special relationship of the rest of the team – admitted after the Leicester game that he also had the wrong impression of Fernandes.
“We in Portugal see Bruno with that frustration and I was really surprised – he is a very good professional,” said United's head coach.
Another former United Captain Bryan Robson is a greater admirer than Keane, but he admitted last week that 'I only hope that Bruno will stay away from rolling when he is tackled and things like that'.
Robson was the original captain Marvel. Fernandes is more captain Marmite. You love him or hate him.
Fortunately, the majority of the United fans love their 'Portuguese Magnifico' and that also applies to most other people in the club.
They describe a leader who rarely acts off the field as he does, although the versions of United and Amorim's short team discussions leave a lot of air time for Fernandes for rave and rave.
A player with an encyclopedic knowledge of European football who usually brings back the journey from traveling on his iPad watching games and is routinely lagging behind after training for extra shooting exercise.
A man who has followed a pastoral approach to the young players of United, checks in with the person on loan and staying in contact with members of the staff he was close to who were made superfluous.
They tell the story of the fan who contacted Instagram on Instagram to say that he first brought his autistic son to a United game. Fernandes insisted that the date was placed in the diary three months later for the game, when he made sure that the boy then invited to the tunnel and presented him a signed shirt.
At United they would challenge Keane's opinion that Fernandes is not a hunter. Unbelievable, in five years at Old Trafford he only missed 15 games – and only four of them were due to injuries or illness.
“The willingness to play by the pain is at a different level for everyone we have ever seen here,” says a source that Fernandes has seen that you switch between an ice bath and hot jacuzzi for hours in succession to illuminate single and back injuries this season so that he can play in the next game.
Cristiano Giariretta, his sports director at Udinese and Novara in Italy, remembers this well. “If Bruno were injured, he would say:” Don't check, I just need tape on the ankle “. He had this in his DNA, “Giaketta recalls, who still has regular contact with Fernandes. 'It's not just about quality with Bruno. It's about his spirit and mentality.
“He never gives up. He has injections despite the pain because he wants to be on the field. To play games, to recover and to prevent injuries, you must be like a machine. Bruno is a good machine. '
It was Giariretta who brought Fernandes from Portugal to Novara and was surprised when he visited the teenager in the Novarello training complex and discovered that he had placed post-it notes that was written in his room in his room to help him learn the language.
“It was very smart, but I wasn't surprised,” says Giariretta.
“He didn't want to be there alone, he wanted to know what the coach said and also having an important word in the team.”
Fernandes soon became a crucial player for Novara, broke in the first team in his first season and turned the club's season.
When Mail visited Sport Maia, an industrial town outside Porto, where he grew up in an apartment on the first floor in the Gueifaes district, his coach reminded at ADR Pasteleira Fernandes as a 'wild horse'.
He had to be removed from the training for fighting and became a leader for his team.
“When we played away, we would go there with eight or nine balls and come back with 12!” Antonio Peres laughed.
Above all, he produced an incredible 32 goals and 17 assists in the 2018-19 season as a sporty Lisbon captain to win two trophies, and to galvanize a club by a notorious training ground attack by fans, before he came to United in a deal of £ 68 million in January 2020.
Giariretta, for example, does not doubt that Fernandes is the ultimate Talisman who is far removed from the captain who is so taxed by Keane.
“If someone criticizes Bruno, it is because he does not know his personality or leadership,” Giariretta adds.
'You were born a winner and a winner dies. This is an important quality for Bruno.
“He was a man when he was 19, and the coaches trust him because he is very reliable. Certainly, he helps Amorim like crazy.
“He is the kind of player that you always have to pray to God to have in your dressing room.”
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