Coming up against the midfielder who became the third most expensive player in West Ham history when the Premier League club signed him from Southampton for a cool £40m last month will be a challenging experience for the members of the Scotland Under-21 side this evening.
In fact, head coach Scot Gemmill yesterday admitted that he fully expects his young charges to be shocked by the athleticism, physicality, technique and football intelligence of Mateus Fernandes in the 2027 European Under-21 Championship qualifier at Fir Park.
Yet, Gemmill, whose side got their bid to reach Albania and Serbia underway with a 2-0 loss to the Czech Republic in Uherske Hradiste on Friday night, believes that seeing the standards they must attain to reach the very highest level of the professional game will be no bad thing for them.
And he certainly doesn’t expect the likes of Colby Donovan of Celtic, Luke Graham of Dundee, Findlay Curtis of Rangers and James Wilson of Hearts to be overawed to be facing, if they are selected, one of the finest prospects in European football. He knows the hosts have to take to the field expecting to get a result despite the high calibre of the opposition.
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“I saw that Fernandes went for £40m in the final week of the window,” said Gemmill. “But they’ve probably a few of them in the same bracket. It's actually quite common. The Spain team we played last year was a €300 million team. Dean Huijsen of Real Madrid and Pau Cubarsi of Barcelona played. I think back to when we beat the Netherlands in Paisley. Frenkie de Jong played that day.
“If the players are to work their way towards the full squad, they need to experience playing against these players even though they are sometimes faster than them, stronger than them and are technically very gifted. It is a special part of their development.
“It's always interesting to see obviously the value of the opposition players, especially the young ones. Fernandes is actually a 2007 age group player, which is incredible. But I think it's brilliant because the players have to find a way to compete against them.
“There's no question it’s a positive thing for the players. That is 100 per cent the reality. The players can be shocked at times, but it's a good thing. They need to be shocked.
“You have to see that you need to keep getting better. I actually think it needs to happen even earlier, even younger. Sometimes it can happen too late. There's a ceiling to that window of development in my opinion. I think a lot of more work, resource and investment has to go into the really early development of the players.”
He added, “But it's about getting that balance, between development and getting a result. We know we're expected to compete no matter who we're playing against because it's the Scotland Under-21s. The fans love to see Scotland teams play well. They're not overly interested in the development they expect the team to compete. So we have to do that.
“There's no question Portugal will be looking to win the Euros, not just qualify. They will respect all the opposition teams they will play, but there's no question their primary objective is not to just to qualify, it is to win the competition. But we’ve shown we can beat these teams.”
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Meanwhile, Gemmill has expressed hope that Liam McFarlane can make a quick recovering from the injury which he suffered against the Czech Republic last week after the Hearts goalkeeper, who has been loaned to Alloa this season, was forced to pull out of the squad.
“Liam went home straight away obviously,” he said. “He had a really difficult journey home because of his concussion. It didn't count as a as a concussion substitution as per the UEFA ruling. But our doctor, our medical team knew he was in danger of being concussed and he went on to be diagnosed as concussed.
“He had a hellish trip home. He was vomiting and the like. Nobody likes to travel in that condition. But I hope he’ll be back soon. It's just a really bad impact injury. The medics are confident that he hasn't actually broken his nose. I think he's just banged up. I think he'll heal quickly and I really hope so.”
Gemmill has called up Mitchel Frame, the teenage left-back who moved from Celtic to Aberdeen, after Cameron Gardener returned to Grimsby Town due to a knock. “It's really exciting time for him,” he said. “I'm sure he's hoping and to be in contention to play for Aberdeen.”
