Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes says he has “Mixed feelings” about facing former club Sporting in the Champions League.
The Red Devils will travel to Lisbon for the match on 25 November, when the two sides meet in the league phase of the competition.
The fixture will bring Fernandes up against the club where he established himself before moving to Manchester United. The Portugal international played for Sporting from the middle of 2017 until the beginning of 2020, making the forthcoming encounter a significant personal occasion as well as an important European match.
Fernandes has shared his expectations ahead of the meeting with Sporting, but his reaction was summed up by the phrase “Mixed feelings”. The midfielder will now return to the club he represented for more than two years, this time as Manchester United captain and an opponent.
For Manchester United, the game represents an away assignment in the Champions League league phase. For Fernandes, it is a reunion with Sporting, the Lisbon side he left at the start of 2020 to join the English club.
His spell with Sporting ran from mid-2017 through to early 2020. That period preceded his transfer to Manchester United and links the two clubs directly through one of the Premier League side’s most prominent players.
The match on 25 November will therefore carry a clear connection to Fernandes’ career. He will face his former employers in European competition after previously representing them in Lisbon, while Manchester United prepare for the away fixture as part of the Champions League’s league-phase schedule.
The meeting is the latest stage in a relationship between Fernandes and Sporting that began in 2017 and ended with his move to Manchester United in 2020. His comments indicate that the occasion will not be viewed as an ordinary fixture, with the player acknowledging the contrasting emotions surrounding a return to his former club.
Manchester United’s trip to Lisbon is scheduled for 25 November. Sporting will host Fernandes and the Red Devils in a Champions League league-phase match that combines a competitive European tie with the return of a former player to his previous club.
Fernandes’ past with Sporting gives the fixture its central storyline. Having spent the period from the middle of 2017 to the beginning of 2020 with the Lisbon club, he will now arrive as Manchester United’s captain and face Sporting from the opposite side.
