- Hernani played 220 matches in the league. He represented the colors of Górnik Zabrze, Korona Kielce and Pogoń Szczecin.
- The Brazilian settled down in Poland for good. He lives in Krakow with his wife and children, and has had a Polish passport since 2011.
- After the end of his career, Hernani became a transaction broker. He has not made any spectacular transfers yet, but he has already brought some players to lower leagues in Poland.
For some time he has been living on two phone calls, leaving one at home. There is no way out, otherwise they wouldn’t let him live. They call practically non-stop, even in the middle of the night, because he receives requests to find a football club from all over the world: from Colombia, Venezuela, Japan … His record is 117 missed calls, and hundreds of messages on Facebook. Hernani, once one of the best defenders of the league, has a new life – he has become a transaction broker.
Hernani and meeting with Nedved
Contacts in this business are the most important. Former defender incl. Korony Kielce and Pogoń Szczecin knows it perfectly well. His friend was making the transfer of Militao to Real Madrid and is soon to fly to Poland to explore the local market. Hernani also has a great relationship with Gabriel Tubaldo, to whom the famous Mino Raiola is grateful to this day for introducing agents to the world. Tubaldo brought Hernani to Poland in 2004, and now he has promised to help him meet the most important people in the football world. – Gabriele wants me to be his right hand man on the Polish market. When the pandemic ends, I have an invitation to Italy to meet, among others with Juventus sporting director Pavel Nedved, says Hernani.
The 36-year-old aims high, recently he decided to use his acquaintance with Ronaldinho, a colleague from Gremio Porto Alegre. It was customary in the club that every Monday the reserve team with Hernani in the squad played a sparring game with first-team players who did not play at the weekend. In this way, both players played against each other several times. – He liked me, so he didn’t fool too much. But my partner from the center of defense was able to twist mercilessly. That is why I was always the best out of two stopwatches – laughs a Brazilian with a Polish passport. They did not become friends, but the acquaintance survived. Both, plus Ronnie Garcia, Hernani’s partner living in Wrocław, intend to do joint businesses. Thanks to Ronaldinho, talented footballers from the Spanish league can come to Poland, and an additional attraction would be the arrival of the star for one day, during which he would be at the club’s disposal. – The benefits are the same. Someone gets a good player for a year, for example, and he can use Ronaldinho for marketing purposes: organize a press conference, meetings with children, sponsors … We talk to three league clubs about such cooperation and we are waiting for final decisions – says Hernani.
Hernani: a tough negotiator and a good uncle
He read a lot about the managerial market to best prepare for his new role. He noticed that the best in this profession could perfectly sense when to be a ruthless negotiator and when to be a good uncle. And most importantly – that you have to be careful with people, because even if the club’s sports director gets along with a football player for 5,000 euros a month, it does not mean that he will not change the conditions for the worse at the last minute. Hernani has yet to make any spectacular transfers, but you have to start somewhere. He brought several players from Brazil, Colombia and Japan to the lower leagues, thanks to him Joao Augusto landed on the Vistula, who scored 11 goals for the first league Olympia Grudziądz last season. In recent days, the 36-year-old has participated in the transfer of Sporting Lisbon forward Leonardo Ruiz to the Spanish second-tier – Logrones. Unsuccessful transactions also happen. Two years ago, the Brazilian found Jakub Bąk (then Puszcza Niepołomice) a club in the second Korean league. Bąk could earn five times more than in Poland, but he withdrew because he was afraid that he would not be able to do it without knowing the language. – Before I bring a player to Poland, I make sure if he is mentally and football ready. It has to be, otherwise it doesn’t make sense. The family sometimes sells a plot of land or a car so that the footballer has a ticket to Europe. It cannot be that after one sparring it turns out that he is not suitable – explains Hernani.
Hernani: it’s easier to live in Poland than in Brazil
He, when he came to Poland 16 years ago, was ready. It flew quickly, Anna’s wife jokes that in four years her husband will have to decide whether he is a Pole or a Brazilian, because then he will have exactly half of his life in both countries. They live with their children in Kraków, a few minutes’ walk from the Market Square. Hernani claims that he felt like a Pole when one day in the cloakroom he had to explain to his colleague, a Pole, how to start a business. Our country has become more important to him than his homeland, and not only because of his family. First of all, it’s much easier to live here. In Brazil, no one is in a hurry, all matters are postponed for an eternal and undefined tomorrow. You want to repair the car, first a jackdaw, a chat, then the mechanic starts working. When Hernani was opening a shop in Brazil and he needed an IT specialist, he was one and a half hours late, he didn’t even apologize for the delay and was very surprised that Hernani was no longer interested in cooperation. The former footballer was like that, but in Poland he learned to respect time, when he came five minutes late to meet the owner of Górnik Zabrze, Marek Koźmiński. “What time is it, young?” He asked and gave me a terrible scap. From that moment on, I am everywhere on time – assures the Brazilian, and our meeting confirms this.
He wanted to flee the country, but only at the beginning. The collision with the Polish cloakroom was too much of a shock for him. – In Górnik, the first six months were very difficult. Back then, footballers had a different approach to the game than they do today: they drank, smoked, partied. “We’re athletes, what am I doing here?” I wondered. In Korona, I was also pissed off by one situation. In 2007, we played the Polish Cup final with Groclin. We went to the game the day before and after the training our friends organized a party. They did not take this final seriously. I was terribly w… We lost, I didn’t play because I was injured. Then I had a moment when I wanted to change something, to leave, but thanks to my wife I finally stayed – recalls Hernani.
Hernani gave his wife the worst vacation
They met in a situation where Ania could only hate him, not love him. It was winter 2005, a break in the competition. Hernani and other Brazilian Górnik players (Filipe, Joao Paulo) were sent to Kołobrzeg for a week.
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Hernani and Sebastian Szałachowski
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Hernani: – We were supposed to come back to Brazil, but there was no money in the club for tickets, so a week-long trip to the seaside was organized for us. Ania was hired as our translator. We pull up, and the city is empty, everything is closed, we couldn’t even find a pizzeria. After all, it was winter. So out of boredom we played volleyball in our hotel room. Two in the morning, and we play, scream, music at full blast. The other guests tried to silence us, but to no avail. We didn’t even open them, because what for? So complaints were sent to our translator. She begged us to stop, but we didn’t listen. All the neighbors have changed rooms to stay away from us. When we came to breakfast in the morning and said “good morning”, everyone turned their heads. Finally, we got bored, and on the sixth day we told Ania that we wanted to shorten our stay by one day and return to Zabrze. When she informed the hotel manager about it, he was so happy that he not only returned the money for the last night, but at his own expense ordered us a taxi to the station. Years later, my wife told me that we gave her the worst vacation ever.
However, this is not what he will be most remembered for in Poland, but a solid game in defense. He was one of the best in every club in his position. At one point, even the topic of playing for the Polish national team appeared, but it never came to particularities. When Hernani started applying for a Polish passport, Paweł Janas was still the team selector, and when he finally received it in 2011, Franciszek Smuda already held the position. – And he was in love with Manuel Arboleda. Anyway, at that time I suffered an injury and the topic fell – the Brazilian is waving.
In Pogoń, Hernani stopped feeling the joy of the game
He ended his career unexpectedly quickly, at the age of 31. He was in Pogoń at the time, he played regularly, there was an offer to extend the contract for another three years.
Hernani: – I invested a lot at that time. In Brazil, I had stores: sports, clothes and toys. I hired my sister and brother and my best friend. I wanted to make them earn. But you know what it is like – when your boss is on another continent, you stop trying. The shops were run-down, messy, and nothing working properly. When I came to Brazil on vacation, I had to clean up this mess, reorganize everything. I was leaving, it was quiet for a month, and then again tragedy. My parents tried to ease the situation, explaining that I had to forgive, because they were my siblings. I was losing money, and my mom and dad weren’t even on my side … Business problems were building up, they were sitting deep inside me. And at some point it broke. During one of the games in the first half, we entered the dressing room and I cried. Just. I said I don’t want to play anymore. Anyway, my discouragement to the ball grew slowly. In Pogoń, I stopped enjoying the game. Everything was fine until one day I got my new car to the club. I had such a cool, big, off-road. Someone from the fans took a photo, uploaded it to the network and I was complained that I was earning too much. Even the colleagues in the cloakroom started talking about it. I had one of the highest contracts in the team and felt envy in some of my colleagues. And I was supposed to score a goal in every match? Or preferably two? I was discouraged by everything. After I left Pogoń, I changed my phone number. Only the family, Edi Andradina and Marcin Robak, their closest friends, had a new one. One day in my neighborhood I sat down with my neighbors and opened a beer. And I felt that I was finally free.
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