Sterling is an icon
I WILL TRY TO STOP HIM TODAY BUT AS A YOUNG BLACK GUY I AM SO PROUD OF RAHEEM
LIKE many footballers, Brighton’s young Brazilian defender Bernardo Fernandes da Silva finds security in routine and his is very simple. He trains in the morning and then takes his dog Eto’o for a walk in the afternoon.
Often he will meet team-mates Glenn Murray and Solly March. The unofficial Brighton and Hove Albion dog walkers’ club will convene under a tree in Withdean Park. The dogs run around and the footballers talk.
‘Glenn is an idol of the fans so if I am with him people come over but when I am on my own they don’t know who I am and that’s fine too,’ Bernardo told Sportsmail this week. ‘I do enjoy Glenn’s company and Solly’s. But if I am alone I like that also. I just watch the dog and sit in the shade. It’s nice to relax and not have to say too much.’
Bernardo is a listener and a watcher, that much is clear.
Having started a degree in journalism before his career as a footballer took flight, the young left back from Sao Paulo has an intelligence and an inquisitive mind. His development as a Premier League player in only his first season is testimony to that.
But it turns out that Bernardo has plenty to say. At Wembley today he will square up to Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling. With the help of his manager, Chris Hughton, the Brazilian has devised a plan he hopes will help him in his personal joust with the country’s most in-form attacker.
Away from the field, meanwhile, he has a firm view on Sterling’s public stance against racism.
‘As a young black guy I am really proud of what he has been doing,’ Bernardo said. ‘In his position, many players wouldn’t do it because it can attract hate if you speak out. It can be easier to stay safe in your nice bubble.
‘Many black players have suffered but people in his position don’t always want to do what he is doing because they don’t care. They know as a footballer, people will always treat them nice. Apart from the odd stupid person in a stadium, people will always be nice to them. So at the end of the day, Raheem could have stayed quiet and got on with his life while others suffered. But he chose not to.
‘He is doing this more for other people than he is for himself and it will have a big impact.’
Bernardo, 23, has a back story not typical of the many Brazilians who have played here. His father of the same name played for Brazil which meant he had the money to send his son to private school.
Bernardo was the only black face in class, which means that he has seen prejudice and racial division and knows just how ugly it is.
In the morning he studied with the rich white kids and in the afternoon played football with the poor black ones.
Now that his career has brought him to Brighton, it feels as though he is in the right place. ‘For sure I think I am at the right club,’ he said. ‘There is a big gay community in Brighton, for example, and that’s nice because I was raised in a place where I was a minority, so I know how it feels.
‘I still don’t understand how people can judge each other and exclude people because of their preferences or skin colour. This city is open-minded and I love that and that goes for the club as well.
‘For example, I don’t enjoy the fact that Chris is the only black trainer in the league, but I enjoy the fact that the one that there is happens to be here with us.
‘The women’s team coach is also a black woman (Hope Powell) and that shows how the club and the community are linked. The owner (Tony Bloom) understands the mentality here. He is not a billionaire from somewhere who has bought the club but has given it no identity. The club really has the city’s personality and it makes me really glad to be here.’
On the field, Bernardo’s learning curve has been steep. Bought for £9million from RB Leipzig last summer, he started the first game of the season at Watford but struggled so much he was not used again in the Premier League for more than two months.
‘The start was shocking and after Watford I realised I would have to adapt,’ he recalled. ‘Now I will say that it was good for me in the end as I was training and sitting on the bench and looking. I was understanding what I had to do to be better. But it was not easy at the time. Many things came to my mind. Not just football. Other things were also bothering me. Have I made the right choice to come here? Will I be on the bench all season?
‘Then I had other things to worry about such as moving and my girlfriend Valentina and also my dog…’ Eto’o the Basenji was indeed a headache. It faced at least a month in airport quarantine until Bernardo paid someone to drive it to Brighton from Europe.
‘ He is like the old Egyptian drawings of half man and half dog, one of the oldest breeds in the world,’ he smiled. ‘They are very wild hunting dogs so have a strong temperament. If I took the lead off I would never see him again. But he is an amazing dog.
‘We called him Eto’o after Samuel (the former Barcelona, Inter and Chelsea striker) as we wanted to give him an African name.
‘We had names like Mandela in our head but thought it was too complicated to shout it!’
It is hard not to be drawn to a young footballer with such an obvious lust for life. His first sight of Brighton was on a DVD showing thousands dancing on the beach at a Fatboy Slim concert. Many of those same people will be at Wembley to watch their football club. They will just be a little older.
‘I read online that Brighton is the happiest city in England,’ Bernardo said. ‘Maybe it’s the sun or the sand. But people are really nice and we get that atmosphere in the stadium. We want to do something special for them.’ City will be formidable opposition, of course. A look at their results shows 21 wins
and just one defeat since Boxing Day. Can a team who lost at home to Southampton last weekend really beat them? ‘The only problem can be the mentality,’ said Bernardo. ‘You see the 21 wins and think immediately that you will be the 22nd.
‘But we had the same problem in Germany with Bayern. The first few games for Leipzig, we had a plan to stay back and counter.
‘But we lost three games against them and drew one, so then our coach Ralph Hasenhuttl (now at Southampton) said we would attack them. We went there with the will to attack and we won.
‘So it’s all about the mental part. We have no pressure. They are the ones who have the responsibility to win. We have to believe it’s possible.’
Bernardo will enjoy his first visit as a player to Wembley. He has been as a fan to watch England and was disappointed to see the twin towers are no more.
He feels the same about the way the Maracana in Rio has similarly been stripped of its identity and is horrified by plans to knock down Milan’s San Siro.
A young man with an opinion, he worries most about the way things do not change back home.
‘It is sad especially when I go to London and see black people and Asian people being successful and having money,’ he said. ‘You go to Brazil and still don’t see that. It is still the same.’
Still uncapped, Bernardo is too young to be a spokesman for his own generation. Sterling — the opponent he will chase up and down City’s right flank today — has made that step.
‘He is the best English player at the moment and so many kids see him as their icon now,’ he said.
‘Not just on the pitch but from the things he says and from his attitude. Him speaking out encourages people, especially the kids who are coming through. They see him as the big guy to follow. It may happen that in the future he becomes an icon or a role model away from football, too. His is a voice for everybody.’
by Ian Ladyman Football Editor ‘I don’t enjoy the fact that Chris is the league’s only black coach’