I grew up watching English football but it’s my World Cup with Messi that’ll make me a Chelsea star, says Enzo Fernandez
IN the space of two months, Enzo Fernandez has been cheered through the streets of Buenos Aires and booed off at Stamford Bridge.
In between, the Argentina midfielder became the most expensive signing in English football history with a £106million transfer deadline-day move to Chelsea.
And the 22-year-old only turned professional barely three years ago.
Behind the hype, money, tattoos, YouTube clips and the World Cup winners’ medal, Fernandez is a naive, deeply religious boy with so much to learn as he grapples with stardom and living up to expectations.
He said: “A lot has happened in a very, very short time and I still feel like I’m in a period of apprenticeship, like a learning period — it’s still a learning curve.
“I’m totally aware I’ve come to a massive institution. To a massive club in Chelsea.
“It’s all gone very quickly. It’s just three years, my professional career.
“From my time at Defensa, through to River Plate, I’ve learned something at every stage of my career, and also Benfica as well.
“Then to win the World Cup — it’s a dream, isn’t it?
“But you never lose that desire to learn and improve and that’s what has always signified my style and my play.
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“It’s in my training, wanting to learn, wanting to improve and wanting to be better as a footballer and as a man.”
Fernandez is learning the hard way, with Chelsea heading into Sunday’s traditionally frenetic London derby at Spurs on a dreadful run by their standards.
Two wins in 14 games and just one goal in their last five matches… hardly the best return on an investment of about £286m in the last transfer window alone.
It is probably not what Chelsea’s record signing was expecting either and a comedown after the delirium that greeted Argentina’s Qatar 2022 triumph where he was Young Player of the Tournament.
But Fernandez knows all about the ups and downs of English football after watching lots of it as a kid.
He said: “It would be me and my dad in bed with a bottle of Mate, the herbal tea, watching the Premier League on TV, just me and my dad.
“I always used to get up early, I know exactly the times — Sunday mornings we used to tune in for the Premier League.
“It is four hours’ difference in the winter, three hours in the summer.
“So we knew exactly. Sunday mornings, we’d get up, watch the TV — teams like Chelsea and Manchester United.
“I was aware of all the Argentinians playing here then like Kun Aguero, Carlos Tevez, and Higuain, who was at Chelsea.
“I’ve always loved watching football and so have all my family. There were lots of heroes here in the Premier League.”
Arguably the greatest Argentine player ever, Lionel Messi, will probably never experience English football’s rough charm.
But Fernandez will bring to Stamford Bridge the experience of a transformative month when he went from squad hopeful to mainstay of a World Cup-winning team alongside a true great in Argentina’s legendary captain.
Fernandez said: “What can I take from that time with him?
“Energy from that squad, that dressing room and from all my Argentinian team-mates because it was a special dressing room. You can imagine it was lively.
“Also positivity, desire and a real will to win — those are the ideas that were really prevalent in that dressing room. But also keeping humble, as that’s a thing about Messi, keeping humble.
“He’s one of those leaders who is really positive all the time, both in the example he sets in his style of play but also on a human level in the dressing room.
“I felt very conscious he was with me all the way, giving me a lot of moral support.
“It was a dream, my biggest dream ever really, to play with Messi and to be in a team with Messi.
“I know I’m still young and I need to keep learning.
“But at some point in the future, maybe tomorrow, or in the future, I want to really demonstrate that I’m a leader both in the group off the field and on the field as well.
“It’s all about coming back to that point of doing my best for the team. I want to help take this club forward and help my team-mates.”
Millions greeted Fernandez and the Argentina team on their homecoming with a third World Cup — but now it is back to the nitty gritty.
But where it was Messi a few weeks back, Fernandez now shares a dressing room with less imperious players.
He added: “There was a huge celebration but now it is just a case of changing the chip in your head as that is all you are doing.
“You never lose that professionalism, that desire, that strength to compete, that desire to win stuff on all fronts and in all competitions.
“Every competition I’ve gone into, I have always considered myself to be really professional. My attitude has not changed.
“And however fantastic it was to win the World Cup, you still have those ideals of doing your best, helping your team-mates and trying to compete with everything you have got.”
Fernandez has implored the Chelsea fans to put their faith in the players as they attempt to climb out of a dreadful run of form.
He added: “My message to the fans is never forget that we are representing you.
“We are there for you. We are representing you as a group of supporters.
“Trust us. Trust the players, trust the backroom staff, trust the manager because we are all moving in the same direction. We have a lot of new faces here and it is a restructuring of the club and the playing staff.
“I would encourage them to be patient.
“We know we are representing them and we are giving everything for them.
“We are trying to win games, starting on Sunday. Then we can start to turn things around.”
CHELSEA (likely): Kepa, Badiashile, Silva, Chalobah, James, Fernandez, Kovacic, Chilwell, Sterling, Havertz, Mudryk.