Abelardo Fernández facts for kids
Abelardo managing Sporting Gijón in 2014
|
||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Abelardo Fernández Antuña | |||||||||||||||
| Date of birth | 19 April 1970 | |||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Gijón, Spain | |||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in) | |||||||||||||||
| Position(s) | Centre-back | |||||||||||||||
| Youth career | ||||||||||||||||
| 1985–1986 | La Braña | |||||||||||||||
| 1986–1988 | Estudiantes Somió | |||||||||||||||
| 1988–1989 | Sporting Gijón | |||||||||||||||
| Senior career* | ||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | |||||||||||||
| 1989 | Sporting Gijón B | 4 | (2) | |||||||||||||
| 1989–1994 | Sporting Gijón | 179 | (13) | |||||||||||||
| 1994–2002 | Barcelona | 178 | (11) | |||||||||||||
| 2002–2003 | Alavés | 28 | (0) | |||||||||||||
| Total | 389 | (26) | ||||||||||||||
| International career | ||||||||||||||||
| 1990 | Spain U20 | 1 | (0) | |||||||||||||
| 1990–1991 | Spain U21 | 6 | (1) | |||||||||||||
| 1991–1992 | Spain U23 | 12 | (5) | |||||||||||||
| 1991–2001 | Spain | 54 | (3) | |||||||||||||
| 2002 | Asturias | 1 | (1) | |||||||||||||
| Managerial career | ||||||||||||||||
| 2008–2010 | Sporting Gijón B | |||||||||||||||
| 2010–2011 | Candás | |||||||||||||||
| 2011–2012 | Tuilla | |||||||||||||||
| 2012 | Sporting Gijón (assistant) | |||||||||||||||
| 2012–2014 | Sporting Gijón B | |||||||||||||||
| 2014–2017 | Sporting Gijón | |||||||||||||||
| 2017–2019 | Alavés | |||||||||||||||
| 2019–2020 | Espanyol | |||||||||||||||
| 2021 | Alavés | |||||||||||||||
| 2022–2023 | Sporting Gijón | |||||||||||||||
| 2024 | Cartagena | |||||||||||||||
|
Medal record
|
||||||||||||||||
| *Club domestic league appearances and goals | ||||||||||||||||
Abelardo Fernández Antuña, born on April 19, 1970, is a Spanish former football player. He was known simply as Abelardo during his playing days. He played as a strong central defender and is now a football manager.
Abelardo was great at heading the ball and marking opponents. He was also known for his distinctive bald head, which he had from a young age. Most of his career was spent with Sporting de Gijón and Barcelona. He played 385 matches and scored 24 goals in La Liga, Spain's top football league, over 14 seasons. He also managed Sporting de Gijón for three years.
He played more than 50 games for the Spanish national team over ten years. Abelardo represented Spain in two World Cups and two European Championships.
Contents
Abelardo's Playing Career
Playing for Clubs
Abelardo was born in Gijón, a city in Asturias, Spain. He began his professional football journey with his local team, Sporting de Gijón. This is where he first played in La Liga, the highest league in Spain.
In the 1994–95 season, he joined FC Barcelona. He was a very important player for Barcelona, helping them win two league titles, two Spanish Cups, and two Spanish Super Cups. He also helped them win two European trophies. However, he faced many injuries during his last years at the Camp Nou stadium.
When he was 32, Abelardo moved to Deportivo Alavés. He planned to play for two years, but he retired after just one season. This was because of a knee injury that kept bothering him, even from his time at Barcelona.
Playing for Spain
Abelardo played his first game for the Spanish national team on September 4, 1991. It was a friendly match against Uruguay in Oviedo. He went on to play 53 more games for Spain and scored three goals. He played for Spain in the 1994 and 1998 FIFA World Cups. He also played in UEFA Euro 1996 and 2000.
Abelardo was also a key player for the Spanish Under-23 team. This team won the gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. He scored goals in both the semi-finals (a 2–0 win against Ghana) and the final (a 3–2 win over Poland). On December 28, 2002, he played for the Asturias regional team in a friendly game against Honduras in Avilés. He scored the first goal in their 5–3 victory.
International Goals for Spain
Here are the goals Abelardo scored for the Spanish national team:
| # | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | October 12, 1991 | Benito Villamarín, Seville, Spain |  France |
1–2 | 1–2 | Euro 1992 qualifying |
| 2. | November 13, 1991 | Sánchez Pizjuán, Seville, Spain |  Czechoslovakia |
1–0 | 2–1 | Euro 1992 qualifying |
| 3. | March 29, 2000 | Montjuïc, Barcelona, Spain |  Italy |
2–0 | 2–0 | Friendly |
Abelardo's Coaching Career
After retiring as a player, Abelardo became a coach. He started with the B team of his first club, Sporting Gijón, in 2008. He was fired during his second year, but the team still managed to stay in their league, Segunda División B. In May 2010, he moved to coach a nearby amateur team, Candás CF.
Abelardo then signed with CD Tuilla for the 2011–12 season. This team was also in Asturias and played in the Tercera División. He helped them win the Copa Federación de España (Asturias tournament). On February 10, 2012, Sporting Gijón hired him as an assistant coach.
Abelardo returned to being a head coach for Sporting B in 2012–13. Later in the next season, he led them to a big 4–1 win against their rivals, Real Oviedo. A week later, he became the head coach of the main Sporting Gijón team. The club was having serious money problems, but he still managed to lead them to get promoted back to the top league in his first full season. He left his job in January 2017 because of disagreements.
On December 1, 2017, Abelardo was hired as the manager of Alavés. At that time, Alavés was in last place in the top division. His first game was three days later, and he led his team to a 3–2 away win against Girona FC, even though they were losing 2–0 with only 20 minutes left. In 2018–19, his team started well and was even competing for a spot in the Champions League. However, they didn't do as well in the second half of the season and finished 11th. He resigned at the end of that season.
Abelardo returned to the city of Barcelona on December 27, 2019. He became the third coach for RCD Espanyol that season, as the team was in last place. Six months later, he was dismissed because the team was eight points away from safety with only seven games left.
On January 12, 2021, Abelardo went back to Alavés to replace the previous coach. He returned to Sporting Gijón in May 2022 but was relieved of his duties on January 15, 2023.
On June 6, 2024, after more than a year without coaching, Abelardo was named the new manager of Segunda División team FC Cartagena. He signed a contract for the upcoming season but was dismissed after only six matches.
Abelardo's Personal Life
Abelardo first met Luis Enrique, another famous Spanish footballer, when they were both six years old. They played together for the same junior team, and later for Sporting Gijón, Barcelona, and the Spanish national team.
Managerial Statistics
Here is a summary of Abelardo's coaching record for different teams:
| Team | Nat | From | To | Record | Ref | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Win % | |||||
| Sporting Gijón B |  |
July 10, 2008 | January 4, 2010 | 59 | 19 | 9 | 31 | 67 | 87 | −20 | 32.20 | |
| Candás | |
May 19, 2010 | June 14, 2011 | 47 | 24 | 15 | 8 | 76 | 49 | +27 | 51.06 | |
| Tuilla | |
June 14, 2011 | February 10, 2012 | 32 | 16 | 6 | 10 | 45 | 34 | +11 | 50.00 | |
| Sporting Gijón B | |
May 22, 2012 | May 4, 2014 | 86 | 29 | 28 | 29 | 111 | 108 | +3 | 33.72 | |
| Sporting Gijón | |
May 4, 2014 | January 17, 2017 | 110 | 37 | 34 | 39 | 130 | 144 | −14 | 33.64 | |
| Alavés | |
December 1, 2017 | May 20, 2019 | 69 | 29 | 14 | 26 | 83 | 86 | −3 | 42.03 | |
| Espanyol | |
December 27, 2019 | June 27, 2020 | 17 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 19 | 24 | −5 | 29.41 | |
| Alavés | |
January 12, 2021 | April 5, 2021 | 12 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 8 | 29 | −21 | 8.33 | |
| Sporting Gijón | |
May 3, 2022 | January 15, 2023 | 30 | 10 | 12 | 8 | 34 | 30 | +4 | 33.33 | |
| Cartagena | |
June 6, 2024 | September 25, 2024 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 10 | −5 | 16.67 | |
| Career total | 468 | 171 | 125 | 172 | 578 | 601 | −23 | 36.54 | — | |||
Honours and Achievements
As a Player
Barcelona
- La Liga: 1997–98, 1998–99
- Copa del Rey: 1996–97, 1997–98
- Supercopa de España: 1994, 1996
- UEFA Cup Winners' Cup: 1996–97
- UEFA Super Cup: 1997
Spain U23
- Summer Olympic Games: 1992 (Gold Medal)
As a Manager
Candás
- Copa Federación de España (Asturias tournament): 2010
Tuilla
- Copa Federación de España (Asturias tournament): 2011
See also
In Spanish: Abelardo Fernández para niños
