Alejandro "Álex" Fernández Iglesias (born 15 October 1992) is a Spanish professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known simply as Primera División in Spain, and as La Liga in English-speaking countries and officially as LaLiga Santander for sponsorship reasons, stylized as LaLiga, is the men's ...

club

Cádiz Cádiz (, , ) is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia. Cádiz, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, ...

Club career

Real Madrid

Born in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, Fernández joined

Real Madrid Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (, meaning ''Royal Madrid Football Club''), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid. Founded in 1902 as Madrid Football Club, the club has traditionally wor ...

's youth system from neighbouring

RSD Alcalá Real Sociedad Deportiva Alcalá is a Spanish football team based in Alcalá de Henares in the Community of Madrid. Founded in 1929 it plays in Tercera División RFEF – Group 7, holding home matches at ''Estadio Municipal del Val'', with a capac ...

, aged 12. In 2010, he started appearing with

Real Madrid Castilla Real Madrid Castilla Club de Fútbol is a Spanish football team that plays in Primera Federación – Group 1 for the 2022–23 season. It is Real Madrid's reserve team. They play their home games at the Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium with a cap ...

Segunda División B Segunda División B ( en, Second Division B) was the third tier of the Spanish football league system containing 102 teams divided into five groups, until it was replaced by the new structure in 2021. It was administered by the Royal Spanish Foot ...

and, in July of that year, he was called by first-team coach

José Mourinho José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix GOIH (; born 26 January 1963), is a Portuguese professional football manager and former player who is the current head coach of Italian Serie A club Roma. Once dubbed "The Special One" by the British ...

to a preseason tour in the United States. He made his unofficial debut on 5 August in a friendly against

Club América Club de Fútbol América S.A. de C.V., commonly known as Club América or simply América, is a professional football club based in Mexico City. Nicknamed ''Las Águilas'' (The Eagles), it competes in Liga MX, the top tier of Mexican football ...

(3–2 win), with his brother

Nacho Nachos are a Mexican culinary dish consisting of fried tortilla chips or ''totopos'' covered with melted cheese or cheese sauce, as well as a variety of other toppings and garnishes, often including meats (such as ground beef or grilled chicken ...

also making his first appearance that day. Fernández made his league debut with the B side on 29 August 2010, playing 87 minutes in a 3–2 home win against

Coruxo FC Coruxo Fútbol Club, is a Spanish football club based in the parish of Coruxo, Vigo, in the autonomous community of Galicia. Founded in 1930 it plays in Segunda División RFEF – Group 1, holding home matches at ''O Vao'', with a capacity of ...

. On 3 October he scored his first goal, contributing to the 3–0 home victory over

AD Cerro de Reyes Agrupación Deportiva Cerro de Reyes Badajoz Atlético is a Spanish football team based in Badajoz, in the autonomous community of Extremadura. Founded in 1980, the club is not registered in any competition. Its home matches were held at ''Estad ...

. He finished his first season with 32 games and two goals, as the team fell short in the promotion playoffs. On 6 March 2011, Fernández made his

debut, playing the last minute of a 3–1 defeat of

Racing de Santander Real Racing Club de Santander, S.A.D. (), also known as Racing de Santander () or simply Racing, is a football club based in Santander, Cantabria, Spain, that currently competes in Segunda División, the second tier of the Spanish league system ...

. He contributed 35 appearances in the 2011–12 campaign – playoffs included – with Castilla returning to the second tier after five years.

Espanyol

Fernández left Real Madrid in August 2013, by mutual consent. He signed shortly after with

RCD Espanyol Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol de Barcelona (; "Royal Spanish Sports Club of Barcelona"), commonly known as Espanyol, is a professional sports club based in Barcelona, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top tier of the Spanish football league sy ...

in the top level, appearing in 30 competitive matches in his

first year A freshman, fresher, first year, or frosh, is a person in the first year at an educational institution, usually a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational institutions. Ara ...

but starting in only five. On 28 January 2015, Espanyol loaned Fernández to

HNK Rijeka Hrvatski nogometni klub Rijeka ( en, Croatian Football Club Rijeka), commonly referred to as NK Rijeka or simply Rijeka, is a Croatian professional association football, football club from the city of Rijeka. HNK Rijeka compete in Croatia's top ...

until the end of the season. On 18 August, he joined

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

club

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

on loan, with a view to a permanent move at the end of the campaign. He scored his first goal for them on 19 January 2016, in a 5–2 home win against

Huddersfield Town Huddersfield Town Association Football Club is a professional football club based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . The team have played home games at the Kirklees Stadium since moving from Leeds Road in 1994. The ...

the third round ''The Third Round'' (1925) was the second silent film adaptation of the Bulldog Drummond character, starring Jack Buchanan and Betty Faire, adapted by Sidney Morgan from the novel of the same name by H. C. McNeile, and directed by Morgan. Cas ...

in the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

Elche and Cádiz

On 31 August 2016, shortly after terminating his contract with the ''Pericos'', due to expire the following year, Fernández signed for

Elche CF Elche Club de Fútbol, S.A.D. ( ca-valencia, Elx Club de Futbol, S.A.D.) is a professional football based in Elche, Province of Alicante, in the Valencian Community. Founded in 1923, the club competes in La Liga, holding home matches at ''Estadi ...

. The following 7 August, after suffering relegation, he agreed to a two-year deal with fellow

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commercially known as LaLiga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. Administrated by the Lig ...

team

Cádiz CF Cádiz Club de Fútbol, S.A.D., known simply as Cádiz, is a Spanish professional football club based in Cádiz, Andalusia. Founded in 1910, the club competes in the La Liga, holding home games at Nuevo Mirandilla, with a seating capacity of 20 ...

. With a total of 11 goals, Fernández was his team's top scorer in 2019. He scored 13 during the season from 41 appearances, in a return to the top flight as runners-up. In

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

, Fernández contributed four goals – bettered in the team only by

Álvaro Negredo Álvaro Negredo Sánchez (; born 20 August 1985) is a Spanish professional Association football, footballer who plays for Cádiz CF, Cádiz as a Striker (association football), striker. Nicknamed ''La fiera de Vallecas'' (The beast of Vallecas ...

's eight – as the

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...

n side stayed up in 12th place; he missed the final two months with a right knee injury. On 6 June 2022, he extended his contract until 2025.

Personal life

Fernández's older brother,

, is also a footballer. A defender, he also graduated from Real Madrid's academy but remained there while Álex moved on. Their physical appearance is quite dissimilar, owing to Álex's

red hair Red hair (also known as orange hair and ginger hair) is a hair color found in one to two percent of the human population, appearing with greater frequency (two to six percent) among people of Northern or Northwestern European ancestry and ...

Career statistics

Honours

Real Madrid Castilla *

: 2011–12 Spain U19 *

UEFA European Under-19 Championship The UEFA European Under-19 Championship, or simply UEFA Under-19 Championship or the UEFA Euro U-19, is an annual football competition contested by the European men's under-19 national teams of the member associations of UEFA. Spain and England ...

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

Individual *UEFA European Under-19 Championship Golden Player: 2011

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fernandez, Alex 1992 births Living people Spanish men's footballers Footballers from Madrid Men's association football midfielders La Liga players Segunda División players Segunda División B players RSD Alcalá players Real Madrid Castilla footballers Real Madrid CF players RCD Espanyol footballers Elche CF players Cádiz CF players Croatian Football League players HNK Rijeka players English Football League players Reading F.C. players Spain men's youth international footballers Spanish expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Croatia Expatriate men's footballers in England Spanish expatriate sportspeople in Croatia Spanish expatriate sportspeople in England