Erling Haaland left Serie A club heartbroken but Bruno Fernandes became their most important player ever
Bruno Fernandes continues to make history, and Andrea Carnevale enjoys the irony of his role assisting Manchester United’s assist king.
The Red Devils captain is closing in on the all-time Premier League record of setting up goals, and it comes as little surprise to those who discovered his ‘foot mastery’ from an early age.
The PFA Player of the Year front-runner was a relative unknown when Novara Calcio, then playing in Serie B, snapped him up at 17-years-old.
Fernandes quickly earned the nickname, the ‘Maradona of Novara’, and fittingly caught the attention of an old teammate of Diego’s.
Carnevale, who played alongside the Argentine icon at Napoli, has since been responsible for Udinese’s scouting set-up after retiring.
And the 65-year-old exclusively told talkSPORT.com during the club’s International Media Days event in March how Fernandes stood out.
One of Udinese’s scouts watched Novara’s No.32 play the full 90 minutes in a 2-0 win over Empoli in January 2013.
How Bruno Fernandes was discovered
“We have a network of scouting here in Udinese,” Carnevale said.
“One of my scouts, whose name is Franco Galantini, went to see this guy, I think it was Empoli.
“And then there was the second match, where I had to personally watch Bruno Fernandes.
“He said that this guy was really interesting to go and see right away. And I went to Cittadella the first time I saw Bruno Fernandes.”
The Portuguese magnifico didn’t disappoint – duly scoring a goal and assisting another in a 6-2 win for Novara at the end of that March.
Carnevale said: “After half an hour, 40 minutes, I called the president, Gino Pozzo. I told him, ‘Gino, we absolutely need to take this guy here.’
“He is a talented, intelligent guy. He has a foot mastery that I have seen in very few young boys.’
“And so we did this deal, because for me it was a great deal.”
However, not every future superstar whom Udinese brought to European recognition made as strong a first impression as Fernandes.
Samir Handanović, who captained Inter to the Scudetto in 2021 and was a three-time Serie A Goalkeeper of the Year winner, conceded three goals in Longarone against Italy while playing for Slovenia’s youth side.
“But I like him for his style and technique,” Carnevale added to talkSPORT.
“After that, I decided to bring him here, and after a month, we took him.
“It was a great intuition for me, without knowing where Handanović could go, so it was a big surprise and satisfaction.”
Erling Haaland heartbreak
What wasn’t a big surprise was the level to which Haaland became when he burst onto Udinese’s radar at Norwegian club Molde.
Carnevale explained to talkSPORT.com: “We were the first to scout; we had a room here in front of my office.
I’m very happy to tell you about it because we started with the cassettes, then we started with the DVDs.
“We watched all the games from around the world. When it was night here, there were the different leagues on the other side. So we recorded these cassettes, then they became the CDs, and we watched the different leagues all over the world. This is something I like to remember because I’ve been here for 24 years.
“I think that Wyscout was born from the idea of Udinese. Many years ago, Wyscout became an extraordinary platform.
“We saw Haaland many years ago, and he was already a prodigy.
“By prodigy, I mean that when we saw Haaland in Norway, he was already a young, big and well-built player.
“When I saw him, I said to myself, ‘This is a guy that we absolutely have to get.’ We also treated him well, but Haaland, game after game, started scoring.
“I think, from the four or five goals in the first games, it was a bit difficult to get him because he already had a higher number, five or six million.
“So, for a club like ours, I have to say, at 15 years old, it was a big risk to spend €5million or €7m. So, the deal, unfortunately, didn’t go through; it was a heartbreak.
“Then, Salzburg came along, who has a lot of money, and they took him so easily.
“We saw the potential of this guy, and Udinese had no doubt about this player.”
Such a viewpoint is harder to back up in the case of Rodrigo De Paul, who was fighting for a second chance when Udinese came calling.
Rebuilding Gary Neville flops into a World Cup winner
The Argentinian had been sent off one minute into his LaLiga debut under now-West Ham head coach Nuno Espírito Santo at Valencia.
De Paul’s fortunes failed to improve when the latter resigned just before the midway point of the season, and in came Gary Neville.
The Man United legend, who won just three of his 16 LaLiga games in charge, loaned the midfielder out and was sacked a month later.
Yet De Paul was the name Carnevale brought up when asked who the last young player he scouted that he was wowed by.
“I have to say that despite his talent, De Paul did very badly in Spain,” he told talkSPORT. “After a year, De Paul returned to Argentina.
“The president asked us to look into De Paul, and we looked into him again after a few months. We said that we absolutely had to take De Paul because we saw a lot of potential in him.
“We saw him again a few months after he left Valencia. We said, look, president, this guy, De Paul, I think, is absolutely to be scouted because we see in him a very high potential.
“We took him, and De Paul spent two extraordinary years here, and then he became a world champion.”
Fernandes will attempt to become the same this summer, but regardless of whether he succeeds, his Udinese legacy remains intact.
Carnevale said: “Bruno Fernandes, in my opinion, has become the most important player in the history of Udinese, together with [Alexis] Sanchez, Totò Di Natale, [Vincenzo] Iaquinta, and [Fabio] Quagliarella.
“He has become a player who has been paid, from Portugal, I think, 78 million to Manchester United.
“And so for me it was a great satisfaction, because you could see Bruno Fernandes, could really get to the big football clubs.”
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