Rafael Tavares Gomes Fernandes (born 28 June 2002) is a Portuguese 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 lea ...

who plays as a

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

for French club

Lille Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...

Professional career

Sporting CP

A youth product of

Sporting CP Sporting Clube de Portugal (), otherwise referred to as Sporting CP or simply Sporting (particularly within Portugal), or as Sporting Lisbon in other countries,

since 2010, he started playing with their reserves in the 2021-22 season.

Arouca

On 11 July 2022, he transferred to Arouca in the

Primeira Liga The Primeira Liga (), also known as Liga Portugal Betclic for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Portugal and the highest level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga ...

signing a three-year contract. He made his professional debut as a half-time substitute in a 4–0 Primeira Liga loss to Benfica on 5 August 2022.

Lille

On 31 January 2024, Fernandes moved to

Ligue 1 Ligue 1 (; ), officially known as Ligue 1 McDonald's France, McDonald's for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in France and the highest level of the French football league system. Administered by the Ligue de ...

side

, signing a four-and-a-half-year contract. The French club paid a reported €3 million transfer fee.

Loan to Rangers

On 18 January 2025, Fernandes signed for

Scottish Premiership The Scottish Premiership, also known as the William Hill (bookmaker), William Hill Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Scotland and the highest level of the Scottish football league system. Th ...

side

Rangers A ranger is typically someone in a law enforcement or military/paramilitary role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called "ranging" or "scouting". The term most often refers to: * Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with prot ...

on loan.

International career

Fernandes is a youth international for Portugal, having played for the Portugal U18s and

U20 U20 or U-20 may refer to: Naval vessels * * , a sloop of the Royal Navy * , a submarine of the Austro-Hungarian Navy Other uses * Great truncated cuboctahedron * Meizu U20, a smartphone * Roland U-20, a synthesizer * Small nucleolar RNA S ...

References

External links

* * 2002 births Footballers from Setúbal Living people 21st-century Portuguese sportsmen Black Portuguese sportspeople Portuguese sportspeople of Cape Verdean descent Men's association football central defenders Portuguese men's footballers Portugal men's youth international footballers Sporting CP B players F.C. Arouca players Lille OSC players Rangers F.C. players Liga 3 (Portugal) players Primeira Liga players Championnat National 3 players Portuguese expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in France Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in France Expatriate men's footballers in Scotland Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Scotland {{Portugal-footy-defender-stub