Mateus Fernandes has had enough of the 2024/25 football season, and it sounds like he’s also had enough of the game as a whole, for a while at least.
The Southampton midfielder suffered relegation with the Saints, with the battle not even going close to the end of the season, and a finish adrift at the bottom of the Premier League table.
Then it was the time to cheer himself up, going away with Portugal’s talented U21 team to the Euros. The Portuguese side weren’t the favourites for the tournament, but they won’t have expected to be knocked out in the quarter-finals by the Netherlands on Saturday evening.
That’s been seen as a big blow, and the Southampton player isn’t taking it very well. The 20-year-old spoke to the media after the match and is quoted by Record as saying: “It was a very difficult day, but that’s football. We didn’t take advantage of our opportunities, they ended up going there once and managing to score.”
Then, when asked about his situation generally, Mateus Fernandes made clear just how fed up he is: “It was a tiring season for me, I’m completely fed up with football. Many defeats, it was a year of learning and that’s it, learning from football. I hope that in the next Euros we can give a better response. Now it’s time to forget about football for a while and enjoy the holidays.”
Fernandes is one of the players expected to leave Southampton this summer, following the club’s relegation to the Championship. Whether he wants that sorted out before he relaxes is unclear, as it appears he just wants to forget about it all for now.
