Manuel Fernandes

Manuel Henrique Tavares Fernandes was born on 5 February 1986 in Lisbon, Portugal. He is a professional Portuguese international and plays for Russian club FC Lokomotiv as a midfielder.

He has won a lot of club cup competitions in various countries and has represented the Portugal Under-21 team in a couple of European Championships.

Background

Fernandes played street football in his childhood along with future Manchester United star Luis Nani. He then joined the youth team of Sport Lisboa Benfica in 1997, and continued his development at the club, rising through the ranks.

Debut

At the age of 18, Fernandes got promoted to the senior team and made his Superliga debut for SL Benfica in the 2003-04 season. He scored a goal in his second game for the club against Sil Vicente FC, with Benfica winning 2-1.

He played a significant role in the Lisbon club's 2004-05 title success, also winning the Portuguese cup. His talent was soon recognised and he got a national team call up in 2007, aged 21. He made 97 senior appearances for Benfica and found the back of the net on four occasions.

Rise to glory

Manuel Fernandes was loaned to English club Portsmouth in 2006 with a loan to buy option.

However, due to injuries, the transfer didn't go through. He had a sporadic outing at Portsmouth, and returned to Portugal in January 2007 in the winter transfer window.

He was then loaned to Everton in the same month for the rest of the season, and pleased the fans with his game when he scored a stunner against Manchester United.

After the season ended, Everton were not willing to pay the 12 million pounds transfer fee to Benfica for Fernandes, and the player again returned to his former club.

He had some good performances in the pre-season matches and moved to England again as Everton triggered his 6 million pounds release clause, but in 2007, Manuel finally moved to Spain, playing for the La Liga club Valencia, who bought the player for 18 million euros.

His four year tenure at Valencia was not very fruitful as he scored just two league goals from 56 appearances, but won the Spanish Cup.

Fernandes signed with Turkish club Besiktas JK in December 2010 on loan for the remainder of the season.

He won the Turkish Cup with Besiktas, assisting twice to level the score at 2-2, and converting his penalty in the shoot out. He scored three goals from 24 appearances in his first season at the club.

After signing a new 3-year contract with Besiktas, Manuel played 116 games for the club and scored 20 goals. He stayed with them till his contract ran out in 2014.

On 2 June 2014 Fernandes moved to Russian club Lokomotiv FC to play in the Russian Premier League.

Club career

In his first season with Lokomotiv, he made 28 league appearances and scored seven goals. He was also named the Team Player of the Month. He has won the Russian cup twice with Lokomotiv, in the 2015 and 2017 season.

Fernandes scored a hat-trick against FC Fastav Zlin on 28 September 2017 in just 17 minutes, becoming the fastest player ever in the history of the UEFA Europa League to score a hattrick. His hat-trick saw the hosts win 3-0.

International career

Fernandes was a part of the Portugal squad in the UEFA European Under-21 Championship. He was named in the starting line-up in every match.

He made his senior team debut in February 2005. On 26 March in a friendly match with Canada, Manuel scored his first senior international goal.

His first official debut was against Armenia on 17 November 2007 in the UEFA Euro 2008 qualifiers which Portugal won 1–0. He scored in the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifiers against Cyprus to give Portugal a lead at 4-3, but the match was drawn 4-4 when Cyprus equalised.