One is trying to lead a rebuild of Manchester United, the other is pushing for promotion from the ninth-tier Southern Combination League.<\/b><\/p>\n
While Bruno Fernandes, 30, leads United out at at the 75,000-capacity Old Trafford, known as the ‘Theatre of Dreams’, his older brother Ricardo plies his trade 240 miles away in West Sussex at a ground nicknamed the ‘Theatre of Trees’.<\/p>\n
Roffey FC’s home in Horsham had an average attendance of 133 last season and got its nickname because it is surrounded by trees.<\/p>\n
The Fernandes brothers may play at opposite ends of English football’s pyramid but they are more similar than you would think. <\/p>\n
They wear the number eight, play in central midfield, have both captained their club and score spectacular goals.<\/p>\n
“He saw it, it spread on the internet, it was great for me,” recalls Ricardo whose strike against Seaford Town in a 2-0 victory in April 2024, still gets shared regularly on social media.<\/p>\n
“The way we pass the ball, our style of play is similar. He’s at the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ at Old Trafford, I’m at the ‘Theatre of Trees’ at Roffey.”<\/p>\n
“Growing up, the dream was that both of us would be professional, he’s made it and I’m pleased I can enjoy it alongside him as well.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One is trying to lead a rebuild of Manchester United, the other is pushing for promotion from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-377228","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-manchester","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115099962278328212","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}