Manuel Fernandes’ football life was green and white. The Portuguese, who died this Thursday aged 73, enjoyed the best moments of his Lions career and will always be remembered as an Alvalade legend.
His football career began early, in his hometown, the village of Sarillos Pequenos, in Moita.
Manuel got his taste for Sporting from his mother, who died when the future goalscorer was only 10 years old.
The qualities of the still young man were noticed by the best Portuguese clubs. CUF (Companhia União Fabril), a now-defunct but established first league team in the 1970s, stepped forward and brought the player into their ranks.
At the Barreiro club he began to stand out as a “goalkeeper”. He made his League One debut at the age of 20, but did not become a starter until the 1972/72 season – when CUF finished in a historic fourth place.
The player remained in CUF until 1975. He scored 40 goals in 138 appearances for the south bank club.
This was only the beginning of a very close relationship between Manuel Fernandes and the network. After the letter of recommendation was shown to Portuguese fans, interest from big players followed: Porto and Sporting were eager for the athlete, but the Lions won the race.
Personally, Manuel Fernandes could hardly have imagined a better debut season. With 30 goals scored in 37 matches, the young woman from Moita is a real problem for opposition defences.
However, the debut season as a whole did not go very well. Sporting finished the season in fifth place. In the 1979/80 season, the Lions would finally win the national championship.
In more than 10 years during which he was the “lion” on his chest, Sporting’s performance was not always consistent, and the only certainty in each season was the goals of Manuel Fernandes. For the Lisbon national team, there were 433 matches in 257 matches.
It was with Sporting that he won the only five titles in his career: two championships, the Candido de Oliveira Super Cup and the Portuguese Cup. He was the championship’s top scorer in the 1985/86 season.
He is the fourth player with the most games in Sporting history (433) and the second most goals (258).
The divorce from Sporting came in 1987, when he swapped the green and white of Lisbon for the green and white of Setubal. In the last years of his career, he played for Vitoria.
He made his debut for the national team in 1975 against Cyprus. He scored his first goal the following year, playing his fourth match for the national team. In total, he scored seven goals in 30 matches for Portugal.
He scored seven goals in 30 caps.
His career as a coach was more colourful than his playing career. He started at Sadinhos, where he ended his career, and went through ten teams – nine from Portugal and the Angolan Atletico Sport Aviasan.
He has four promotions and one Super Cup under his belt, in the 2000/01 season when he was in charge of Sporting.
As with his playing career, he “retired” as head coach of Vitoria.
Author: Miguel Pinheiro Correia
Source: CM Jornal
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