Today we’d like to introduce you to Fernando Hernandez
Hi Fernando, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I arrived in the United States in 2007, at the age of 11. My dad had just been let go of his job back in El Salvador (our home country) and we came to the country because of a new opportunity my dad found here. It was just my dad my mother my brother and I now in this new country. I spoke very little English and had no reference in my head of what the United States or Miami looked like or was like. I started going to middle school (Winston Park k-8) right away where I found it a bit difficult to fit in, got bullied for not knowing the language at times, so I became really quiet and observant, in my head as I was a middle schooler among students I always thought there was something important or funny or of value that I could add to whatever conversation was happening in front of me, I just didn’t know the language at the time and didn’t’ really know how to express myself correctly so it was a bit frustrating. I was able to express myself eventually through sports, the sports I had played in El Salvador were tennis (my first sport) and soccer but in my Middle School we did not have a soccer team nor tennis so the sport that I was able to make friends and connect with people through was flag football. That was my first experience kind of understanding and seeing the power of sports and what it can do.
I really loved the game of soccer though so I would go to the park and just kick to the goal by myself until one day a coach from an academy saw me kicking and asked me if I played for any teams and I said no, I was new to the country, so he asked me if I wanted to join his team that he could give me a scholarship, obviously as a new family in the country this was weird for my parents to hear once I told them, it was super exciting for me to hear these words from a coach but for them it was simply strange because he was a stranger, thank God it was exactly how he had said it was going to be though and I got to join what was at that time called Real Madrid Academy. Went into high school in 2010 (Miami Sunset High) with a little bit more support given the fact that my brother had just graduated from the same high school, I knew a little bit more of the language, I knew some kids who were also going to the school thanks to me playing for this new soccer team, so it was a different experience, I was a bit more comfortable and equipped now. In High School is when I learned more about the way things were in this country, in this state, I was able to connect with people from different walks of life, not just soccer players, I played volleyball my freshman year, that was something new that helped me meet different people, I was good in school with certain subjects so took a couple of AP classes and that also helped me meet different people, with the soccer team, I also happened to be talented in the game so I had made varsity team my freshman year, got myself some friends that we pretty much had similar lives (immigrants who just loved playing soccer) and eventually became the captain of the team by my Junior year (2013), which was my best year in high school, my eyes were simply opening up throughout the years in HS to the different type of people that were out there and I had become more open, I wasn’t afraid to put myself out there, I wasn’t the most charismatic or well spoken person but I was able to now at least feel some sense of belonging and had the courage to get involved with different circles.
To play soccer at the highest level (professional) was the only thing I ever really wanted, so I eventually graduated high school in 2014 and got this scholarship to go to a junior college in Kansas and play over there, it made sense to me because I would also get free education, but it was a crazy cultural shock, Kansas is definitely not Miami and even though I improved in my craft (soccer) and became more serious about it I also went through some depression, being away from what I knew, away from my family and away from people who I was able to speak the same language with was not easy, it helped me understand life a little more though, helped me understand the “bubble” that high school was and got myself a better sense of what and who actually matter and didn’t, by my second year in Dodge City, Kansas I was the captain of the team, had a roommate that they had brought from Miami, so it got a little better but I was definitely dying to leave given the fact that we weren’t this powerhouse of a team, I was just ready to finish my duties and go back home.
That eventually happened, went back home in 2016 and now I was headed towards the real world, my dad told me instantly that now I was going to have pay some bills (I didn’t know anything about that) and so I went and got myself a job, I had already gotten some experience with certain jobs, hard jobs, so working was not an issue for me, I wasn’t afraid or discouraged to simply work, whatever it was. I knew though that I didn’t see myself doing anything else other than playing football (soccer) so some weird unknown full of doubt times followed, where I was working selling Herbalife at first, and then went to college in Miami Dade to at least get a paper, I didn’t know what I actually wanted outside of soccer though, so I was just earning money to pay for what I needed to pay for and going to college without having a desire at an actual career. Herbalife was not the most financial stable job for me at the time so having to pay for these bills and my parents telling me to get a “real job” became a bit of a pressure, but my life changed going through that experience because it was my first experience where I met entrepreneurs, and the concept of entrepreneurship for that matter, I didn’t even know that was a thing, so the freedom of time, the freedom of choice was something that I loved about it because all I knew up to that point about working a job was that you had to work at specific hours, at a specific place, doing a specific task, I didn’t know you could create for yourself the life you wanted to live if you simply applied yourself and went through a couple of years of “eating dirt” as I call it. All I knew was I loved soccer and I had bills to pay, that’s all I knew. So in the midsts of “confusing times” of my life the Herbalife experience taught me about sells, how to market myself and most importantly it taught me the importance of self development, which really stuck with me because I didn’t necessarily love school but I did love education. I also had gotten into photography, which I also enjoyed, I really loved photographing things and keeping moments.
Anyway, I kept on playing soccer, I kept training, I kept on having different jobs but with the mentality of I’m gonna be a professional soccer player one day yes or yes, it was all I wanted. I had gone to Hungary for a try out in 2017 and it wasn’t really what I was told it was going to be, but I didn’t care I just came back home and still felt that obsession over the game, I didn’t get discouraged so my dad ended up receiving a message from an uncle of mine in El Salvador where he had seen some photos of me playing that my father had posted in social media and he said “anything I could do to help you just let me know, just know we are here supporting him, etc etc” and so my dad took him up on that offer and my uncle connected my father with a big time soccer player from El Salvador who had gone to the World Cup and was well known in El Salvador. He saw my highlights from college and said that he could get me a tryout in a team in El Salvador but that I needed to be there by yesterday, so the next day I was in El Salvador, did pre season with a team, didn’t get selected to that team but then went back to this guy that was well connected and he sent me to another team and so then I ended up signing with A.D. Isidro Metapan and stayed there in Metapan. I signed for a year, I debuted in 2018, and I was 21. The experience was everything and nothing like I thought, I was training with a professional team, I had signed a professional contract but it was not really a professional experience, I was in a town away from the capital, away from my family, sleeping on the floor pretty much, not having much playing time, not receiving the pay in the days that we were promised we would get paid, having a lifestyle that I didn’t really think it was going to be like that, and also ended up getting robbed in the middle of a Monday afternoon like if it was all super casual, so it wasn’t until then that I started thinking about what type of life I actually wanted for myself, because now that I had gotten to become a professional soccer player and that it looked like this, I didn’t know if this is the way I wanted my life to look like, nevertheless in the middle of my 1 year contract I was called by the US government to go back to the United States and do my biometrics for my US Citizenship, it was not something that I thought about not doing, I knew the importance of it and I knew that I needed to go back so I spoke with the owner of the team and I told him I had to go back to Miami and so he released me halfway of my contract, and my contract was over.
Once back home in Miami, I was back to real life, back to more bills and more responsibilities but I kept on playing soccer with a semi professional team and also with just random people (we call it pick up or indoor) which allowed me to meet some pretty cool people but I didn’t have the connections that I had in El Salvador and that I needed to continue having a professional career, so I just started being interested in other things and also started training and coaching kids. The experience I had gone through in El Salvador really got me thinking about what I wanted for myself, I had talent in the sport but I didn’t want to continue going from try out to try out making major sacrifices in my life, I was about to be 22, things looked different.
So eventually I started coaching little kids and got interested in the world of photography, I started doing private sessions and taking photos for fun, then met some cool people in the creative industry that taught me about how to work in collaboration with others and I started discovering a creative side of myself, until an opportunity through the club where I was coaching little kids at eventually presented itself where I sold myself really well knowing nothing about cameras and videos I said I did and dove head in in the creative industry and with some friends got trusted with a $22K budget for us to produce a music video for a French artist that wanted to make his video down here in Miami, and so now I was swimming in different waters, had no idea what I was doing, all I knew was that I enjoyed it and that I was not afraid of saying yes and figuring things out, it was very interesting because I was able to do more than I thought I could do, all I had ever wanted to be was a professional soccer player but now I was a producer. It was very interesting to get this chance and see myself do things outside of my “world”. I went further into the creative world, helped produced a couple of other music videos, got to work with amazingly creative people, got flown out to Panama to photograph a hotel, got hired by restaurants, models, etc etc and so I was in this creative world now but never really felt the love for the craft as I did with the game of soccer, so I kept on private training kids and I ended up being good at it, at the same time I started traveling and photographing different places and helping build this new private training company, it was amazing, it was beautiful to be able to meet, connect with so many people around the world and also continue being part of the game I love so much. Playing semi pro, training kids, traveling, being in a relationship living with someone else, being involved in the creative world, it was a dream, something I never thought of.
Until in 2021, the company that I was helping grow merged with another company and things didn’t really work out for me there, I ended up getting fired from that company the same week that my relationship ended, I had to move out of the place I was with my partner back to my parents house again, but that’s where a lot of people (parents of kids) supported me through it all and told me that no matter what they were going to continue coming to me, and so since then I started on my own and started a soccer club and my own private training businesses called (Tropical Sentinels & Footy by Nature) which is what I do now, on top of being co-owner of ABFC Sports, and coaching a semi professional team of women called AGC Football from there I’m figuring it out as I go.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not at all, not knowing the language was struggle #1, getting bullied was another obstacle, in retrospect you become thankful for it but as you go through it is not enjoyable, getting fired from jobs was another obstacle, not feeling the full support of my parents also, them telling me to get a “real job” didn’t help at all, made me think they didn’t believe in me, moving away and figuring how to do certain things alone also was difficult, I did that a couple of times, when I went away for college, in El Salvador and once again when I moved in with my ex partner. Heartbreak is definitely on the list as well, heartbreak from a relationship that you invest so much energy and effort into, betrayal from the person you thought you were growing a business with was also very challenging because I really did not expect to be fired from that and I got fired with a letter from his lawyer threatening me not to do the same business as the one he was doing because of a stupid NDA (those are bullshit). So definitely many obstacles, the most challenging one though was my brother passing away 2 years ago. Your whole world is turned upside down when that happens, you don’t understand life because life as it was will never be again, you go through it a lot, it is a very complicated subject, grief that is, but yeah many obstacles.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I specialize in the game of soccer, I know how to connect well with players and have them fully trust me in their development as a player, my experiences have taught me a lot about the art that I call soccer, I know how it is played, what it is about, what actually matters in the game, how to get the best out of players and how to get inside their heads to build a strong bond and be able to empower them. I am known for being a tough coach/trainer but at the same time flexible and understanding. I am most proud of the amount of families I’ve been able to help, because in the development of soccer players, the development of the individual as a human being comes first, so I am able to help families with their sons and daughters in the development of a beautiful craft and in the development of so many important values that the game of soccer shares with real life. I would say what sets me apart is love, I really love what I do, it’s obvious when you see me do it and I do it while loving on the people I do it with, by no means am I perfect or am I everyones cup of tea, but I know for sure that a few boys and a few girls lives I’ve been able to touch and made them better people and players.
How do you think about happiness?
Seeing people have a good attitude towards the difficulties of life makes me happy, a nice beach day makes me happy, traveling to new places makes me happy, connecting with new people makes me happy, a good dinner with friends makes me happy. playing soccer with my dogs makes me happy, enjoying my family makes me happy
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @footybynature @abfcsports
