Richard Arnold is striding down the Old Trafford tunnel and pauses to ruffle Bruno Fernandes's hair.
"Are you good?" Fernandes asks.
"Not as good as you, but yes," a smiling Arnold replies.
The football director John Murtough wanders past and offers a wave. Fernandes, still in his kit and wrapped in a tracksuit top as he holds court with a few journalists metres from the Old Trafford pitch, is almost certain to lead Manchester United out of the Wembley tunnel on February 26.
The Portuguese's only appearance at Wembley came in June 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the route into the national stadium was labyrinthine. United were soundly beaten by Chelsea in their FA Cup semi-final.
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Fernandes chimed with fans seven months later after another loss in the last four to Manchester City, again in the soulless setting of an empty arena. He started in the Europa League final later that year and silverware in February would be early vindication for his contract renewal in April.
“Obviously it’s amazing for us," Fernandes says. "It’s a long time since the Europa League, since I’m here we don’t play a final (other than that). It’s important for us to be in this position.
"You come to this club to be in the position to win trophies and we are in a massive position now. But obviously our focus now has to be straight on the league because we have six games before that, league and Europa League, so we have to put the full focus on that.
“You have to be focused because you have to win games to have this confidence, to have the fans with you, to have the results that push you to give your best day by day, game by game. We have to fully focus on those games because that will give us a big push to the final.”
In a taxing month of eight games in 26 days, concluding with a cup final, the United squad's durability will be tested. The attacking depth has been bolstered with the returns of Anthony Martial and Jadon Sancho, back in a United shirt for the first time in 102 days for the semi-final second leg win over Nottingham Forest.
Sancho is one of five wingers who have played their finest football in the same position on the left wing. Move infield and Fernandes is without recognisable back-up in the No.10 role with Donny van de Beek sidelined for the remainder of the season with a knee injury.
Remarkably, Fernandes has only ever missed one match for United in his three years at the club and that was through illness. "I will be unhappy if I don't start, I don't play games all 90 minutes," he smiles. "The manager knows that.
"I'm fully fit, I'm available for the team, whatever I have to do, it's no problem. Not only me, but everyone wants to play a full 90 minutes every game. Obviously, we all know that there are players that need more rest than others.
"I feel good. Whenever the manager thinks he needs to rest me, like in the last game I came off in the FA Cup game, he will decide and I will accept because we have to be in the best form in every game and he has to decide what's best for the team."
Fernandes is encouraged by Sancho's return to squad training at Carrington. "He's been really good. As I said to him, it's great to have him back because we know he is a massive solution for us, as a starter, as someone to come and have great qualities to help the team.
"We all know the capacity that he has. He hasn't expressed it at his best yet, he's been at some moments really good. Obviously now he is back from a long period but we are really happy to have him back, as the same with Anthony Martial coming back from injury.
"Hopefully, Scott (McTominay) will be with us soon, we know Christian (Eriksen) will unfortunately be a bit longer but we are really happy for the team that it gets more and more players fit. Diogo (Dalot) is training also with us and will probably be fully fit really soon and that is really good because the manager has more options.
"And as we always said, it costs a lot to have a place in the first XI but that's good because we push ourselves to our best because we know with the bench today, they can come on, score and they can make a difference. And that is really important for us that everyone is at the same level, at the same focus, at the same passion and wants to achieve the same goals."
Fernandes will meet his new teammate Marcel Sabitzer on Thursday. The on-loan midfielder was in the Old Trafford directors' box to watch the serene win over Forest and is expected to make the matchday squad against Crystal Palace on Saturday.
The mention of Sabitzer causes Fernandes to grimace at the memory of the Austrian captaining RB Leipzig to victory over United in the Champions League group stage in 2020, a defeat that relegated them to the Europa League.
"Yeah, my memories of that game are not good as they put us out of the Champions League," Fernandes recalls, "but he's a good player, a really good midfielder.
"He can shoot from outside of the box, he can score great goals. He'll give us more options in the midfield while Christian is injured. He's another one who'll make it difficult for everyone in the team to have a place.
"Even for him, he knows he has to push himself to the highest level to be playing for us now and everyone that is starting today - for example me, Casemiro and Fred. We know it costs a lot to have a place in the team and we have another one fighting for that position so we have to give our best.
"We're really happy to have him, we think he can help us. Tomorrow I'll be with him, I'll talk a little bit with him and see. I think he's fully fit, he's been playing, so hopefully he'll help us a lot."
A year ago, United resumed their season after the January internationals with FA Cup ejection by Championship side Middlesbrough, the first of three successive 1-1 draws in a February that consisted of only two wins. Come March 15, a fifth consecutive trophyless season was confirmed with defeat to Atletico Madrid.
Now the Old Trafford museum could erect a new plinth before March and United are favourites to reach the FA Cup quarter-finals. They are 10 points better off than Liverpool and Chelsea in the Premier League. Much has changed. Fernandes says it needed to.
"Everything has to change," he stresses. "When you're getting these kinds of results, these kinds of performances, I think since the beginning of the season even on tour we did really well. We started to get into the ideas of the manager.
"The new players that've come, they come to help. The ones that were here before are getting more confidence because they win games.
"I think last year was about confidence. You win one game, you lost another one, you draw another one, you never get that run of victories that gave you the confidence to keep going and keep pushing yourself to do the best.
"We had a bad feeling that any moment of the game could go against us - a corner, a shot, some moment. The confidence was low and that creates uncertainty but obviously I think this season the main thing was the results. You get more confident.
"The idea of the manager is on the team, you can see it. The players that came to the club are also making a part of that but the ones that stayed are also playing and making a part of that too. I think it's the togetherness of all those points I've touched on that make us now in a better position."
Fernandes is good.
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