His old Facebook posts work almost like an archeological source. A declaration of principles when he only had dreams: there was still no sporting glory or clauses of 120 million euros, only coming and going on buses around the suburbs, a lot of fatigue and many frustrations. “I’m super bad. Nothing comes out and I have no luck either. I know that one day it will come ”, she wrote in October 2015, when she was just 14 years old. He did not know – nobody knew – that those days would come and they would be as bright as those of these last months.
Because Enzo Fernández’s career took such an abrupt and fast turn that it is surprising even now looking back. Just two years ago, that day that he dreamed of so much as a teenager had arrived: in January 2021 he emerged champion with Hernán Crespo’s Defensa y Justicia of the 2020 Copa Sudamericana, after beating Lanús 3-0. It was so key that Conmebol included him in the Ideal Team of the Cup.
He played in Defense and Justice because River had loaned him out for a year. And he did so well in Florencio Varela – with the Falcon he also beat Palmeiras for the South American Recopa – that Marcelo Gallardo asked the River leadership to interrupt the loan. Enjoying it with another team was a sports waste.
Back in Núñez, Enzo began to shine. That day that he had dreamed of at his home in San Martín, perhaps it was one at the Monumental: the one with the great goals with the red band on his chest, the comfortable obtaining of the 2021 Professional League or the Champions Trophy. Enzo was the best footballer of the champion River, the platform he built to fly to Benfica in Portugal. To fly to Europe.
But long before that, in 2016, when there were still four years to go before he reached the First Division, when Enzo played four or eight in the lower ranks of River, he wrote on his Facebook: “Nobody knows the sacrifice I make…, the mud what floor, the rains that I suffer, the cold that I go through, the heat that suffocates me, the earth that scrapes me…, nobody knows. Everyone sees the one who goes out onto the pitch dressed in clean club clothes and on a more or less presentable pitch, but no one sees the one who breaks his ass week after week going to train”. Fernández wanted to arrive. He was fighting to get there. And he arrived.
And he probably thought that the day he dreamed of and wrote about in 2014 had not been the final won with Defensa y Justicia or the titles with River, but December 18, 2022, when he lifted the World Cup with the Argentine National Team. The country was celebrating, and Enzo was at the center of those collective celebrations.
After the World Cup, he became the fashionable footballer. Chelsea wanted to buy him, Benfica rejected the proposal, but the London club returned a month later and took him for 121 million euros.
“Playing soccer is kicking a ball”… Yes, for the bloodless who sees it that way. For me it is my life, what I want to be fed, what I want to enjoy, what I want to give my loved ones a good life, what I want to arrive and say ‘it wasn’t easy but I did it’ ‘. No one sees my efforts and sacrifices… but best of all, I do know. So you can criticize me, but while you talk… I don’t listen to you because I’m training, ”he posted in 2016.
Yesterday Enzo Fernández made his debut at Stamford Bridge with Chelsea’s blue shirt. It was 0-0 against Fulham. He carried the five on his back and his name: Enzo. The stadium was very full and his first half was worthy of a crack: he gave two exquisite assists and became the centerpiece of the midfield. In the second half, his game faded a bit, but on balance, the debut was more than positive. “I know that one day it will come,” he wrote. In his career, at just 22 years old, he already has several days to treasure in his memory.
New owners, new financial gimmicks
With more than 600 million euros spent this season, Chelsea broke the bank, although it raises several questions and doubts about the economic and sporting viability of the institution.
In last year’s forced sale by the war in Ukraine, former Russian owner Roman Abramovich committed the buyer to maintaining a level of investment that would allow the blues to maintain their sporting status. An expectation that the new owners, led by the American Todd Boehly, exceeded with the 300 million euros spent in June and the same amount in this transfer market, which on the hour had the record record of 121.3 million euros for Enzo Fernandez.
UEFA has applied the Financial Fair-Play (FPF) for years, but Boehly and Clearlake, the investment fund that accompanies him at the head of the club, believe they have found some defense by lengthening the duration of the contracts, which allows them to be extended in the time the amortizations of payment. Fofana signed like this until 2029, Badiashile until 2030 and Fernández and Mudryk until 2031. Enough time to draw a financial engineering that allows the bubble to be maintained.
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