Mathias Fernandez is a football player who managed to play in clubs in different countries of Europe, to hold many matches for his native national team of Chile, and he also became one of those players on whose shoulders lay the difficult task of restoring the former glory of the legendary Italian “Milan”. However, first things first.
The attacking midfielder moved to Milan only in the summer of 2016. Where did Matias Fernandez perform before? What success did you manage to achieve?
Carier start
As you already understood, Matthias Fernandez is a Chilean player, and he began his career in Chile. At the age of ten, he joined the football academy of the Union club, where he spent only two years before his talent was noticed by the largest Chilean club, Colo-Colo. In 1998, a 12-year-old boy moved to a new academy, where he trained for six years, after which in 2004 he received his first professional contract. And as soon as he began to perform at a high level, he attracted the attention of European scouts. For two years, Matias Fernandez spent 82 matches at Kolo-Kolo and scored 37 goals, after which the inevitable happened - offers from Europe rained down on young talent. Mati chose the Spanish Villarreal, who paid about nine million euros for it.
The heyday of Villarreal
Mathias Fernandez is a football player who did not immediately get a place in the base of the Spanish club, he had to try hard to succeed. In his first season, he spent only twenty matches, scoring a single goal. But then things got better. In the next two seasons, Mati played in 58 matches, scoring six goals. However, it was already clear that Villarreal was not his club, so after two and a half years the still quite promising 23-year-old midfielder signed the Portuguese Sporting, which had to pay Fernandez almost three times less than the Spanish paid Chileans club - three and a half million euros.
A new beginning in Sporting
In Sporting, Fernandez began to play with renewed vigor and began to show a completely different football. In the first season, he spent 46 matches in which he scored five goals. Only three seasons the player spent in the new club, and it was here that Matthias Fernandez was the closest to winning his first European trophy, the Portuguese Cup. The statistics of his appearances for Sporting are impressive: he played 113 matches, scoring 19 goals in them, because it was here that he played closest to the attack (with the exception of Kolo-Kolo, where he played a drawn forward). But in 2012, the player decided to change his club registration again, because Fiorentina offered him a place at the base. The Italian club Chilean cost only three million euros.
Performances for Fiorentina
In Fiorentina, Mati spent the most time - for four years, playing 131 matches and scoring seven goals. And again he did not manage to win a single trophy, and again he stopped a step away from winning the cup, this time - the Italian Cup. But four years later, the 30-year-old player was no longer needed by the club, so for 800 thousand euros he was sent on loan to Milan.
Rent in Milan
Fernandez joined Milan in the summer of 2016, but still has not played a single match. The reason is that already at the end of August he received an injury, from which he recovered only in October. He still has a lot of time ahead to prove that he can benefit Milan.
Team appearances
For the national team of Chile, Fernandez played 72 matches, scoring 14 goals. At the 2010 World Cup, he played two matches, in each of which he received a yellow card, because of which he missed the third group match, and remained in the bench for the 1/8 finals. The Chileans lost that match to the Brazilians. At the 2011 America's Cup, Mati came out in only one match, but in 2015, which was a triumph for the Chileans, he found himself on the field much more often. He took part in four of seven games, including in the final. Mati missed the America’s Cup in 2016 due to an injury, and the last match of the national team in which he participated was the qualifying game for the 2018 World Cup against the national team of Bolivia.