Andrés Fernandez, ex-FC Porto keeper, invests in AI | OneFootball

The goalkeeper Andrés Fernández, who currently plays for Almería, is already planning his professional future beyond football.

The 38-year-old Spaniard had a brief stint with FC Porto in the 2014/15 season, where he participated in only four matches under the management of Julen Lopetegui – interestingly playing 90 minutes in four different competitions: League, Portuguese Cup, League Cup, and Champions League – and decided to venture into the business world.

He is an entrepreneur connected to technology, founder of two companies focused on artificial intelligence. The first, Biyectiva, founded in 2019, is dedicated to consulting and uses AI to improve the performance of large organizations.

«My influence might have been my father, who also liked technological things and instilled a bit of that in me. It always caught my attention since I was little. I started studying Computer Science, spent several years programming, but due to football reasons, when I entered the professional dynamic and had to move around a lot, it was difficult to maintain. Nowadays, there are more opportunities to study than back then. I put it aside and started training in the business world, which I also like,» the goalkeeper began in an interview with As.

«The business aspect has been a learning path. My dedication to football is full, and I am very methodical about breaks and travel. I have always prioritized that, and in the end, it means I can't be involved in the day-to-day of the company. My role has been, above all, to observe the situations my partners and employees face daily and try to help and encourage them. I think sports help a lot in that regard. Athletes are used to dealing with mistakes or failures, and we have to turn them into successes or simply recover and keep working,» he added.

Andrés Fernández has also invested in the sports sector and is a partner of the personalized shin guards brand Oxum Sport. «I have always seen the business aspect as paths where you meet good people. In technology, I have partners who are very worthwhile, and in this, I had a very good friend who worked in a sports brand for fifteen years and was already very exhausted. I said: ‘Why not create your own brand?’ He accepted the challenge, and we started evaluating the project. We began with the idea of making shin guards to enter the market with a product we thought we could explore well… and here we go. This year we will also launch goalkeeper gloves. It's another path,» he announced.

When asked if he is already preparing for life after his career, he was pragmatic: «I'm not sure what it will be. Moreover, I'm not even sure where I will live. My wife is from León. I am from Murcia. I have lived in good places. Here in Almería, life is very good [laughs]. Life sometimes changes a lot from one year to the next…»

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.