Enzo Fernández says Qatar 2022 turned his career around

Enzo Fernández says winning Qatar 2022 changed the scale of his career almost overnight. The Argentina midfielder went into the tournament as a recent senior debutant, came out as FIFA’s Young Player Award winner, and then completed his transfer from Benfica to Chelsea six weeks after lifting the trophy.

Fernández made his Argentina debut in September 2022 in a 3-0 friendly win over Honduras, then was named in the definitive World Cup squad published by the AFA on Dec. 15, 2022. In Doha, Lionel Messi called him a “spectacular kid” as Fernández became a central part of Lionel Scaloni’s midfield on the way to the final against France at Lusail Stadium, where Argentina drew 3-3 and won on penalties.

FIFA’s Technical Study Group judged Fernández to be the most influential young player in the tournament and handed him the Young Player Award, placing him in the same historical line as Pelé and Kylian Mbappé. FIFA also highlighted his 88% passing accuracy across the World Cup, a figure that reflected the control and tempo he brought to Argentina’s midfield during the run to the title.

The tournament also redrew the expectations around him at club level. Fernández had already consolidated himself at Benfica, but the World Cup made him a global name and accelerated his move to Chelsea. What had been a promising European transfer became, after Qatar, a move burdened with far greater attention, price-tag scrutiny and the demand that he perform like a finished star rather than a player still on the rise.

That trajectory began far from Lusail. The AFA lists Fernández as born on Jan. 17, 2001, in San Martín, Buenos Aires, with his first football steps coming at La Recova, a neighborhood club in Villa Lynch. From there he moved through River Plate, Defensa y Justicia, Benfica and then Chelsea, a path that Qatar compressed into a few weeks of global exposure. Fernández’s own reflection on that run was blunt: the World Cup “cambió su vida.”