Andreas Pereira: ‘Alex Ferguson said hi in Portuguese. I didn’t expect that’

Manchester United’s young Brazilian, on loan at Valencia and preparing to face Barcelona, talks about his hopes of impressing José Mourinho

“Bom dia.” It was only two words and it was not exactly poetry, but it was enough. Andreas Pereira was being shown around Carrington by Manchester United’s chief recruitment officer, Geoff Watson, with his dad when Sir Alex Ferguson appeared, which was probably always part of the plan, just as greeting him in Portuguese probably was too. A forward for PSV Eindhoven, the Brazilian had arrived as the outstanding player at the Nike Cup, a kind of youth world championship, but the people he passed had no idea who he was and he was not sure what he wanted to do next. Until, he says, the person he passed was the manager. And then his mind was made up.

“Suddenly we met Ferguson,” Pereira recalls. “He said ‘hi’ in Portuguese and that was very special to me. I didn’t expect that. I thought: ‘How does he know that?’ It was only a little detail but it made me want to go to United straight away. I wanted to sign immediately and stay there. So, I did stay. And from then I never wanted to go anywhere else.” It was 2011 and Pereira was 15; he is 22 now, and it has not quite worked out like that. Not just yet, anyway. But if he has gone somewhere else, it was because he wanted to – in fact, this summer he had to fight for his loan move to Valencia, arguing his corner in negotiations with José Mourinho – precisely because he believes it is the best way back.

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