MANCHESTER, England — What strikes Martelinho, whenever he watches Bruno Fernandes play, is how little he has changed. Fernandes might now be the best player on the in-form team in the world’s biggest league, but to Martelinho, he is not recognizably different from the teenager he coached in the youth teams of a struggling Portuguese club a decade ago.
“The way he is now is the way he always was,” Martelinho said, casting his mind back to the two years he spent working with Fernandes in the academy at Boavista. “He always played with a lot of ambition, always on the front foot, never playing a pass backward, always trying to get into the penalty area.