If football is the sport of the unforeseen, the meteoric leap experienced by Argentina’s Enzo Fernández in recent months has been beyond all predictions and possibly precedent. The Qatar 2022 World Cup midfielder was transferred from Benfica Portugal to Chelsea in England for €121m this Tuesday on the verge of closing down the European market, a figure that positions him as the most expensive transaction of the history of the Premier League and any Argentine player.
Midfielder who turned 22 two weeks ago and combines what is not abundant in football: ferocity, youth, surefootedness, presence in both areas, scoring and a sharp shot from close, medium or long range (he made Mexico world champions Qatar) Fernández was unknown in the football world until a few months ago: his first game as a regular for the Argentine team was against Qatar. One could even say that until recently he was also anonymous in his country: only in November 2020, at the age of 19, he made his debut in the First Division of Defense and Justice, a club in River where Enzo started from the 6 At the age of 18 he had borrowed it so that he could earn it filming.
Fernández returned to the red and white part of Argentina in July 2021 and secured a place in Marcelo Gallardo’s team, became league champion in December of the same year, played his last game at the Monumental Stadium on July 6, 2022 and almost immediately he too left to Europe: Benfica paid him what now seems like a bargain €10m plus another 8 for goals, in exchange for 70 per cent of the pass. Anyway, River has also made the big deal in his story as he is matched with another 32 million for the 25 per cent Chelsea paid to the Portuguese club, which is added to the training mechanisms, which would round up 50 million, an unprecedented figure. , collected by every Argentine club for a transfer – in this case twice, but from the same player.
Curiously, Enzo’s supersonic push was also helped by two external factors, the controversial venue chosen by FIFA for the last World Cup and the coronavirus pandemic. Just as the 2022 World Cup was pushed back five months from its regular schedule, from June to November, to find a place in the sweltering Middle East heat, the roster expansion from 23 to 26 players on the bona fide list was granted The FIFA – it didn’t make the reason official but the idea was born during the pandemic – was also key to Enzo’s arrival in Qatar.
Already having performed well in Portugal since his August debut, Fernández made his debut for Argentina the following month in a friendly in September, playing the last 24 minutes against Honduras. At that point, Panini had already closed its album and Enzo was of course not among the 18 Argentine players chosen to become characters, as stickers are called in Argentina. Finally, Lionel Scaloni, the coach, chose him among the 26 who had traveled to Qatar, but nobody expected the role he would play there, not even the title he would win.
Argentina debuted by losing to Saudi Arabia and Scaloni revolutionized the team with the entry of three young men, Alexis Mac Allister (then 23), Julián Álvarez (then 22) and Enzo (still 21). The big goal he recently scored for Mexico was followed by ownership in the games that followed. For the first time a game started with the Argentine team against Poland, for the third appointment of Group C, and it hasn’t come out since: a position where Argentina had great teachers, Néstor Rossi, Antonio Rattín, Fernando Redondo and Javier Mascherano. His outstanding World Cup ended as world champion and on the FIFA podium, where he received the award for the tournament’s best young footballer.
Back in Portugal, Chelsea began searching for him. From a discreet campaign in the current Premier League, today from the qualifying positions of the Champions League, the English club has been the great protagonist of the winter market by strengthening for more than 330 million euros: in addition to Enzo, he bought the French Malo Gusto and Benoît Badiashile , Ukrainian Mykhailo Mudryk, Englishman Noni Madueke, Brazilian Andrey Santos, Ivorian Datro Fofana and Portuguese Joao Félix on loan.
The most expensive Argentine was Gonzalo Higuaín, for whom Juventus paid Napoli 90 million euros in 2016. In the Premier League, the record-breaking €117,500,000 Manchester City paid Aston Villa for Jack Grealish. Enzo, who got that name because his father idolized the Uruguayan Enzo Francescoli (the emblem of River Plate), signed until 2031 and will make 10 million euros a year. The Argentina-English football relationship is once again building bridges together with six world champions, Mac Allister (Brighton), Álvarez (Manchester City), Emiliano Martínez (Aston Villa), Lisandro Martínez (Manchester United), Romero (Tottenham) and now Enzo.
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