The tension between Thiago Fernandez And Velez came to an end: The connection between player and club ended in 2025 The fans will definitely miss seeing him in the team’s jersey again. Cont because the 21-year-old winger will continue his career in Villarreal. The Spanish club will not give a single euro to the Argentine institution, as the latter only negotiated the contract due to its “free” status.
When a footballer is incapacitated, the situation is usually explained by the player’s – or his representative’s – compelling desire to agree to a departure without concern for the club missing out on the negotiations and remuneration of the transfer. This time it was the other way around, Fernández accused the leaders on social networks for not wanting to renew the contract and then pushing him to the sidelines. He did so after a year of inattention after tearing the cruciate ligament in his right knee and being dropped from the senior team following his release in August.
This silence was broken in the farewell message. In an angry post, Fernández sharply questioned the club’s management and named proper names: “Unfortunately, the club is now in the hands of people who are not up to the task of running such a huge institution. People like Fabián Berlanga, Augusto Costa, Ricardo Álvarez and Sebastián Pait.”
So Fernández, without anesthesia and using first and last names, turned to public opinion and, above all, to the Vélez fan, to clarify the points: before starting the trip to Spain, he said goodbye on social networks and directly targeted the members of the management of the Liniers club, whom he blamed for the failure of the contract extension negotiations.
In the same text, the footballer exposed alleged internal leadership that, according to his story, ultimately made the agreement impossible: “The management does not ignore their disputes among themselves, and when everything seemed to be resolved for my extension with Augusto Costa, Fabián Berlanga said to me: ‘Don’t renew, they are lying to you in the contract.’ And this is one of the 100 situations that happened during my two years of negotiations. Which started because I called the club renew.”
The footballer’s departure capped a conflict that lasted several months and ended with Vélez losing one of the most unbalanced players of the team that became champions of the Professional League in 2024. An unexpected outcome for a union that began with projection and ended with confrontation.
Although Fernández suffered a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee on December 1 of that year – an injury that ruled him out of the tournament final against Huracán – his contribution had been crucial throughout the season. He finished the year with five goals and six assists, numbers that made him one of the team’s most influential players.
Discussions about extending his contract began even before the serious injury. There were proposals and counter-proposals, but none succeeded in unblocking the agreement. Already medically recovered in August, Vélez announced his final marginalization as the renovation work could not be completed. Since then, Fernández has trained individually, although he was also seen with the team at the International Super Cup and Argentine Super Cup celebrations. Up until that point, the player had decided not to publicly release his version of events.
The anger intensified when he remembered a sentence he said he had heard from the club’s highest authority: “After a year of playing and being part of the championship team, I had to hear the president tell me that I had not had the merit to extend the contract, which was a contract signed in youth with clauses and a youth salary.”
Despite the critical tone of the message, Fernández was careful to separate his anger at the leadership from his emotional attachment to the institution. In this sense, he remarked: “Beyond everything that has to do with politics, I leave with a heart full of Vélez, but with real Vélez. The people who work at the club, from security to the technical teams. And thank you to the true fan, the one who accompanied us in 2023 and to whom we were able to give back a little of everything he gave us in 2024.”
Special thanks also went to the medical staff and professionals who accompanied him during his rehabilitation, whom he described as key players in the “most difficult year” of his sports career.
The post did not go unnoticed and received public support from Gianluca Prestianni And Santiago Castrotwo other footballers who emerged from the lower divisions left the club and did not do so on good terms with the current management.
Statistically speaking, Fernández Vélez leaves after 48 official games with five goals and six assists since his debut on April 21, 2023 against Colón. In Spain, he signed a contract with Villarreal until June 2031 and must appear at the Yellow Submarine facilities this Friday, January 2nd.
The unknown now revolves around his immediate future: whether he will be considered by coach Marcelino García Toral or whether he will go out on loan, a decision that could be conditioned by the prolonged inactivity caused by the injury.
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