Former Benfica manager Roger Schmidt has worked with his fair share of world-leading footballing talent: Sadio Mane, Kai Havertz and Son Heung-min are just some of the players he name-checks during his exclusive conversation with FourFourTwo.
Few, though, have been sold for as lucrative a sum as the �107m Enzo Fernandez moved for when Chelsea swooped to sign him in January 2023.
Enzo Fernandez's Chelsea transfer as it happened according to Benfica insider
"He was only there half a year," Schmidt recalls. "We bought him for 50 million. Half a year later, we sold him for 126 million.
"It was the last day of the transfer window in winter and we played Arouca in Portugal. Then, after the match the president told me we had to sell Enzo Fernandez because they [Chelsea] had paid the clause.
"He was gone and we got a replacement."
Fernandez also remembers the transfer playing out in similar fashion, admitting he didn't know whether it would go through and trying to enjoy his football during his last days under Schmidt.
"It was a month of a lot of fuss," he said on the Extra Time podcast. "At that time, obviously, in that month everything was very crazy. Because one week I was going to Chelsea, another week I was not going. That's how it was until the end of the month.
"So, it ended up happening. On the last day of the transfer window, a transfer of a lot of value.
"I obviously tried to enjoy the last few weeks [at Benfica], whether I was leaving or not."
While Fernandez has tasted Club World Cup success with Chelsea since and continues to feature regularly for the Blues, Schmidt has taken on a different role than the one he fulfilled at Estadio da Luz.
A well-travelled manager, Schmidt has taken charge of several prestigious clubs in Europe, including Bayer Leverkusen, Benfica, Red Bull Salzburg and PSV Eindhoven. During his top level coaching career, the former engineer also spent two years in the Chinese Super League with Beijing Guoan, during the country's football boom.
Nowadays, though, Schmidt is the J.League's global advisor, tasked with discovering new talent, sharing his coaching philosophies, and helping to grow and develop Japanese football - the official capacity in which he meets FFT.
Schmidt was in the U.K. overseeing a visit by the J.League's Under-18 select squad, who defeated a QPR youth team XI 7-1 at the club's training ground.
"The national team is like a role model for everything. So if they're successful, then of course you cannot stop enthusiasm in the country," Schmidt added. "I think the Japanese national team is doing very well. There are a lot of players playing already in Europe, top footballers. And so I think the quality there is is very high. I think in the potential is huge, to develop, to grow and to even become a better status worldwide in football than maybe right now."
Japan have qualified for the 2026 World Cup in North America and Schmidt believes the country has the potential to surprise under head coach Hajime Moriyasu.
"I watched two games of them [in the] last months, against Paraguay and against Brazil. They won against Brazil. It was an amazing match. [If] Japan can keep this attitude, this motivation and this energy they developed in the stadium, I think of course they can always surprise.
"They did it already a lot of times, also during World Cups, and we will see. I think the coach is doing very well. The players are top. They get more and more experience in Europe. They grow also regarding responsibility, self confidence and everything. And hopefully they will show it also next year in USA."
TOPICS
