FERNANDINHO EXCLUSIVE: I’d rather kick someone in training than shout

Fernandinho doesn’t mention winning 11 league titles in 16 years during his European awakening.

He doesn’t remind us that, for all the swell of attacking talent at Manchester City’s disposal during a record-breaking 2017-18 campaign, it was him who picked up the club’s goal of the season from the demolition of Stoke City remembered for a Kevin De Bruyne pass.

He neglects to discuss paying his way out of Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine, to the tune of £4million, in order to make sure a move to City happened in 2013. The pivotal role in staying close to Ederson – a young Brazilian goalkeeper who couldn’t speak the language and liked to party – doesn’t come up.

And Ederson is by no means the only one. Fernandinho was a City captain far earlier than when the armband was eventually tossed his way in 2020. His was a selflessness, a dedication to the cause and an insistence that others around him would flourish.

It is partially why legendary director of football Txiki Begiristain labels Fernandinho his favourite signing. City’s English Brazilian, nine years of relentless success and relentless bookings. An old-school soul, at odds with so many compatriots who had tried to conquer the Premier League before him yet just could not acclimatise.

A belligerently self-effacing Fernandinho gently puts himself down during this interview, his first since officially retiring in November. He talks about carrying water from the base of midfield and merely acting as protection, the bodyguard, for more technical team-mates.

Yet what he does do is offer chinks of light into leadership which make it obvious how Rodri became the midfielder he is and why Ilkay Gundogan captained a Treble-winning side. Obvious too that De Bruyne and Kyle Walker used his standards to set their own benchmarks.

And most striking of all, it is obvious that Bernardo Silva has read the Fernandinho book of how best to do this captaincy gig. Silva’s role this year mirrors the old No 25’s task on becoming the main man: to completely erase the previous disastrous season and do things differently to their predecessors.

Back then, Fernandinho – who replaced David Silva – made it abundantly clear to Pep Guardiola how things would go, still picking over the carcass of a harrowing defeat by Lyon in the Champions League quarter-final. With only five weeks between that night and the start of the new season, there was no time to wallow.

‘We’d agreed at the beginning of the season how it would work,’ he says. ‘I told him, “You take care of the tactics, and I take care of the players”. My duty was just to make the players understand how big Manchester City was and try to get the club back on track. We had lost the league (to Liverpool) and then the Champions League. I was really honest with them.’

Attempting to steer City beyond Sunday’s opponents Arsenal in this title race, Silva has spoken so glowingly about the 40-year-old acting as a reference point in how to lead and when Fernandinho talks, invariably you listen. His style was more minded towards discussions on an individual basis and there are countless players who benefited from a kick up the behind. A few of them went on to join him as a club great. Bernardo Silva was delivered one of his own for complaining about injuries.

The Guardiola-Fernandinho dynamic helped carry City to the 2020-21 title, without doubt. ‘An authentic leader,’ was the manager’s description and Fernandinho is credited with turning that season around with one meeting of admonishment on New Year’s Day. He left nothing unsaid after Guardiola had come to him the day before and grumbled about the slipping effort in a session.

Fernandinho took the criticism personally. He stewed on Guardiola’s words over the festivities at home that night, calling an early meeting at the training ground. Those around it at the time talk of how powerful it was.

Reliving their dire situation (which really was tricky, even if City had actually won each of the last three games), the former midfielder suggests they lay 13th in the table, although the mind plays tricks and it was eighth – which, to be fair, probably felt like 13th to them.

‘I’d rather kick them in training than shout at them,’ Fernandinho grins. ‘The next game was Chelsea away, we won 3-1. And that was one of the best performances I have ever seen from those players.

‘Not just with the ball, but the behaviour on the pitch, running backwards without the ball, trying to protect our boxes, and then the wingers, the midfielders, everyone was fully… everyone was aware what we had to do. After that game, I think everyone’s behaviour changed.’

City won each of the next 17 matches in all competitions and cantered to the league title, reaching a first Champions League final. One that infamously saw Fernandinho and Rodri both overlooked in midfield, Gundogan picked as a single sitter instead. Guardiola stands by it, especially given the game played out in exactly the way he’d predicted.

‘I never discussed that with Pep,’ Fernandinho adds. ‘I always understand, he’s paid to make decisions. Sometimes they can be wrong, sometimes, most of the time, it’s not, but he’s paid for that. So that time he thought, the best way to beat Chelsea was to play Gundo, and obviously we support him. It’s life, it’s football, and two years later, Gundo played the final and won the final. So I was so happy for them.’

Fernandinho was there in Istanbul, at the club’s invitation alongside Sergio Aguero. He shared a quiet and touching moment with Guardiola in the dressing room before kick-off, their relationship undimmed. Again, he doesn’t use this opportunity to talk up what past players might have contributed to the eventual Treble.

He describes supporting from the stands ‘with my whole energy’ and feeling an overwhelming sense of joy for staff who give up their lives for the job. Tangentially, he wonders how many hours and days those individuals lose over Christmas periods, missing countless family moments.

‘Sometimes they say, “Oh, you are a fighter. You are a warrior”. I say, “No, I’m just a football player”. I do my job, and then after that I go home to enjoy my time with my family.

‘I think one of my characteristics the players loved was my humbleness, because I always was able to run for them, to play, and then to try to help them. Sometimes with a lot of pain, the legs and the backs and whatever, the body, but I always was ready. And then I think they understand that, they realise.’

This is as self-congratulatory as it gets with Fernandinho, parroting colleagues. He had leaned into this warrior typecast when Guardiola joined. One early meeting made him realise quite how important the deep-lying midfielder position was going to be in such an expansive system. He had been signed as somebody more box-to-box.

‘It was a quite simple (transition) because under Manuel Pellegrini, sometimes I used to play this position, play alongside Yaya (Toure), sometimes play alongside Fernando.’

Never as a single No 6 though.

‘When Pep came in we had a talk and he said, “No, you’re going to play here because it’s important for me to have a player like you to give me the balance, because I’m going to play with at least five players in front of you”. I said, “Wow”. And then we got David Silva, De Bruyne, sometimes Gundogan. Obviously, both wingers and the striker. It was important for him to have someone like me who would make those guys play as well.

‘What I can say? It was clear to me that my role was to protect my team-mates. So when you have players, especially the season in 2018, when we reached 100 points, we had players like Raz (Sterling), Leroy (Sane), Kun (Aguero), Kevin, David Silva, they were typically technical players.

‘They had ability, which is really hard to find. When you combine those abilities together we were almost unstoppable. Sometimes it was important to make some fouls, to stop the game, to give them a little bit of breath.’

Master of the tactical foul, Fernandinho. To illustrate that, his goals and assists at club level finished at 218, marginally beating 216 yellow cards. We’ll forget the 12 reds. He understood that the Premier League’s pace required him to take plenty for the team. It infuriated opposing supporters and is something Rodri has learned, how best to time that foul and walk the tight rope.

All of that had been studied during eight years at Shakhtar. That and how to best cope with the continent generally. He noticed that when enjoying a coffee in cafes, Europeans prefer their surroundings quiet. He downright refused to be a Brazilian who expected a traditional Brazilian lifestyle in either Ukraine or Cheshire.

His farewell dinner, days before the dramatic conclusion to their 2021-22 title, came at a favourite Italian haunt in Oldham. He has been back in Parana since then, back home in southern Brazil having featured for his first professional club, Athletico Paranaense, across two seasons after leaving City. His son, 16-year-old Davi, is a winger at Paranaense and apparently shares his father’s tenacity.

Raised as a Mancunian, Davi had been apprehensive about moving to Brazil. He’d been ballboy at City and considers himself a fan. So too does his old man, who was used to help Vitor Reis settle on signing last year when a visit to Manchester coincided with the centre half’s arrival from Palmeiras. That is the pull he has.

There are thousands who wanted that brief trip to take on more permanence. Rumours were abound that Fernandinho – who has a FIFA diploma in club management – was being offered the chance to head back, possibly even in a coaching capacity.

‘Really? Rumours are rumours,’ he smiles. ‘I’m starting to enjoy my life. So not planning coaching yet, not planning to go back to the UK yet. But you never know the future, what can happen. I’m so happy, living here in Brazil with my family. We’ll see next year, next season, what’s happening.’

That sound you hear is the creaking of a door ajar.