Bruno Andrade interview: Lincoln forward on not getting a chance at QPR, climbing out of the National League and his pride in old friend Raheem Sterling
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Monday 18 March 2019 18:40, UK
Timing can be everything in football. And Bruno Andrade is more aware of that than many others.
Promoting young talent from the academy seems to be the order of the day now at QPR, but when he was trying to break through just a few years ago it was a very different story.
Andrade, 25 and now at Lincoln in League Two, was trying to make a name for himself at Loftus Road in a period where the club were spending big in an attempt to make it in the Premier League. A couple of years either way and he is convinced things would have been very different for him.
"I'm not trying to sound big-headed but I 100 per cent think I would be playing there if I was coming through now," he tells Sky Sports.
"But at the time it was hectic because QPR were signing players left, right and centre and it made it really hard for youngsters like myself trying to come through. I had players like Park Ji-Sung, Adel Taarabt, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Junior Hoilett in front of me so it was hard to make an impact.
"I don't think I got given a chance to be honest and I reckon if I did I would have proven my worth. But understandably it didn't happen because QPR were fighting relegation battles so they weren't going to trust youngsters to come in and play. They were also chopping and changing managers and that made it harder for me.
"It was sad at the time but there was nothing I could have done, I was training well and trying to learn, but in the end I had to drop down. I had made a few appearances and had been on the bench a few times, but then I got sent out on loan to the likes of Aldershot, Stevenage and Wycombe. Then, unfortunately, I didn't get offered a new deal.
"The year after I left things starting changing and there has been a bit more stability with youngsters getting a chance. For me the timing was all wrong, but everything happens for a reason."
Desperate for first-team action, Andrade joined Woking in the National League in 2015, before switching to Boreham Wood in the same division a year later.
His breakout season came in 2017/18, when 22 goals saw him earn a move back into the Football League last summer with Lincoln. He does admit, however, that he never thought he would have spent so long at that level.
"It was tough because I had been in this little bubble being pampered at a club like QPR," he said. "Initially I just thought: 'Okay, I'll do a year here and then go back into the Football League', but I ended up spending three years down there.
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"Maybe it was a bit of overconfidence, because the National League is a hard league to get out of. There are a lot of ex-professional teams there and I just needed a good year like last year to get my breakthrough.
"You need to have a good mentality to get back up into the league again, because some players can often leave professional clubs and then they end up spending the rest of their career in the National League.
"There is a lot of talent and good players down there, there just needs to be someone willing to give them a chance and a platform."
That chance came his way thanks to Lincoln City and the Cowley brothers. Danny and Nick had worked their way through non-league themselves and taken the Imps up from the National League in 2016/17.
They were familiar with Andrade and jumped at the opportunity to bring him to Sincil Bank last summer. He has thrived back in the professional game, and scored six times in February to win the Sky Bet League Two Player of the Month award.
"It had been a while but I always believed in my ability to get back into the Football League, and Danny and Nick gave me the chance to do that," said Andrade.
"I played against them a fair few times. They always knew about me and I knew about them and I had heard what good managers they were from other players.
"Coming off the back of a good season at Boreham Wood I had interest from a lot of clubs, and Lincoln were one of them. I had a very positive meeting with them where they sold the club well and told me the direction they wanted to go in, and I probably would have signed a contract there and then because I wanted to be part of it."
Andrade has an interesting, and somewhat unconventional, past in football. He initially arrived in London as a young child from Portugal, and spent several years just enjoying himself at local level before joining QPR's academy at the relatively late age of 13.
"I was six or seven and I moved to London with my mum and sister," he said. "I was just playing for a local Sunday League team called Mill Hill Rangers for a couple of years and then I got scouted and was asked to come in for a six-week trial. I signed for them shortly afterwards and didn't look back."
It was there in west London where he made friends with a certain Raheem Sterling, and the pair would combine to give opposition defences a nightmare.
"We were good friends," recalled Andrade. "I was 16 at the time and he was 15 and we were playing at a level two years above us. I was on the left and he was on the right and we would cause teams absolute havoc.
"He would always call me the 'Road Runner' because at the time I used to just knock the ball down the line and then go after it. He would make a joke out of it, shouting 'beep beep!' at me every time we walked past each other in the corridor."
Sterling left to join Liverpool shortly afterwards but the pair have remained in touch ever since. Andrade shows absolute pride in the impact his old friend has had, both on and away from the pitch.
"We still speak here and there, although not as much as before," he said. "I spoke to him during the World Cup to congratulate him and tell him how proud I was of him.
"Raheem has always been a strong character, especially with all the stick he gets. But it doesn't seem like he lets it get him down on the pitch because he is still scoring goals, getting assists and playing unbelievably well. I'm incredibly happy for him."
But could Andrade be lining up against Sterling one day? He certainly has every belief in himself that he can reach that level again. Although facing Mansfield on Monday night, live on Sky Sports Football, to take Lincoln one step closer to promotion is his first priority.
"I couldn't have asked for more from my first season back in the Football League," he said. "I started well then hit a little bit of a brick wall when I got injured, but ever since I got back from my suspension last month I have been back into the rhythm of things.
"I just want to go as far as I can with Lincoln and my dream is always to play as high as I can. I have always believed in my ability and I know I can play in the Championship again or even one day in the Premier League."
