Emily Bernachea Is The Kid Who Wants More
Frederik Hvillum
Emily did not choose football. Football chose her at the point when she could first walk. Her father Nelson played, her older brother Joaquin plays, and when Emily was big enough to be brought along to their games as a spectator, she was not watching. She was finding a ball and kicking it.
"I first fell in love with football when I just started walking. Just seeing my brother and my dad play. Seeing the game," she says. She grew up at the side of the pitch, then graduated to it. She started as a winger, scored enough goals from wide to be moved centrally, and is now a nine who describes finishing not as something she thinks about but as something that just happens.
Playing three years up
Being 13 and playing in a U16 squad for Florida United is not a straightforward thing. It’s physically and mentally different. Joaquin, who is older and has been through adolescence himself, says he cannot imagine it.
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"I just knew I had to do what I usually do when I got on the field. I wasn't nervous. I was just excited," Emily says. She came off the bench in the first game of the Generation Adidas Cup, scored, and kept going. By the final, she had been given the number 7 shirt, scored against Real Madrid, and celebrated with the CR7 siuuu because she had the shirt number, and she had promised herself she would.
Patricia Hughes, commissioner of the Girls Academy, describes her as a big talent. She says what Emily has done this week tells them everything about her pathway going forward. Hughes uses the word special more than once. So does everyone else.
The brother who is never satisfied
"My sister is my biggest flex. She is my favorite topic to talk about. If anything comes up about soccer, I always bring my sister into it," Joaquin says. He’s 19 and started playing at four. She has looked up to him since she was small enough to watch him play and has wanted to be like him ever since. He’s the reason she started playing.
By his own admission, he’s also very strict on her. He watches her differently from everyone else in the family. Where others see four goals and applaud, he sees the moments in between and asks what could have been better. Emily doesn’t resent this. She says it helps her a lot."The surprise element. That's my favorite thing about her. You might think she's having a bad game, and then out of nowhere, she shoots from 30 yards out and scores. I love that," Joaquin says.
What the footage shows
Emily watches her own games back through Veo. Not just the goals. The runs before them. The positioning. The plays that led nowhere and why.
"I really enjoy it because it shows you everything. When you scored, the assists, the runs. I want to see a lot more than just the goal itself. I want to see how the play was, my runs, how I finished," she says. After the four-goal game, it was the footage that settled the argument between her and Joaquin. They watched it together. He came around.
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Her grandmother could not travel to the first games of bGeneration Adidas Cup. She watched the whole thing live on the livestream from home. Emily knew she was there in spirit. She says that was enough.
Fifteen people under a tent
On home weekends, the Bernachea family sets up a tent beside the pitch. They bring mate, pastries, and whatever else is needed for a full day. There are uncles, aunts, cousins, and even friends of cousins.
At the Generation Adidas Cup final, the family drove through the night to be there. Emily didn’t know they were coming. She was warming up with her teammates when she looked up at the stands and saw them.
"I was smiling the whole time I was on the bench. They left at four in the morning. I was like, are you crazy? I would never do that," she says, and then pauses. She would absolutely do that.
When asked what it gives her to have fifteen people at every game, she doesn’t hesitate.
"I know I have people around me that actually care about me and support me in every single way," Emily says.
