The parallels are there and Manchester United have certainly considered them. Few managers go into a club during the season when everything is rosy but, even by the low standards of the trade, Rúben Amorim’s arrival at Sporting in March 2020 stood out.
The Lisbon giants were at a horribly low ebb. Fourth in the Primeira Liga, 20 points off the leaders, Porto, they were on to their fourth manager of the season and their previous title from 2001-02 was a speck in the rearview mirror.
Sporting remained haunted by the notorious training-ground attack of May 2018 when 50 hooligans – incensed by poor results – stormed the premises to beat up players and staff. The relationship between the board and the fans was awful. Oh, and something called Covid-19 was coming.
What Amorim did next, in the short, medium and longer term, returned Sporting to the top of the Portuguese game and established him as one of the brightest young managers in Europe. It has moved him to the point where he is poised to take over from Erik ten Hag at Manchester United – a club whose remorselessly chronicled woes have left them at rock bottom.
The 39-year-old coach is not about to say no, even if it will surely be a wrench to walk out on a team who have won all nine of their league fixtures this season, who believe they can claim a third title under him. Sporting are also going well in the Champions League, having collected seven points from an available nine.
Sporting’s appointment of Amorim was a gamble and the good thing for United is that the sample size with regard to his merits is rather larger now than it was then. At that point the former Portugal midfielder’s CV showed only two months of top-flight managerial experience, albeit they were spectacular ones with Braga. His league record read: P9 W8 D1. He won the Taça da Liga, the Portuguese league cup.
Before that, he had cut his teeth in coaching at the third-tier side Casa Pia before going to Braga B and enjoying his promotion to the club’s first team. The Sporting president, Frederico Varandas, and the sporting director, Hugo Viana, took deep breaths and paid Amorim’s €10m release clause.
For United, it is possible to make the case for this being the most important managerial hire since they turned to Alex Ferguson in 1986 when the team languished 19th in the old First Division. What appeals to them about Amorim goes beyond the headline achievements at Sporting – the sensational title triumph of his first full season, backed up with another one last time out; the two Taça da Liga successes; the run to the Champions League last 16 in 2021-22.
Amorim has built his reputation on the back of his man‑management, an ability to connect with the players, to be extremely close to them and yet never too close. He knows where to draw the lines; when to be a friend, when to be the demanding boss. If he has to put any member of the dressing room in his place, he will do so easily and without hesitation.
Amorim’s authority comes from the strength of his personality, his charisma; the simplicity of his messages, too. He knows what he wants. At Sporting, he quickly settled on a 3-4-3 formation, which he tweaked but never abandoned, and he has always said he does not want to overload the players with information, too much tactical detail. Clarity and consistency are watchwords. They breed trust. His idea is to practise the specifics over and over again.
Amorim’s communication skills extend to his ability to handle the media which, whether managers like it or not (and Ten Hag did not), is a major part of the role. Ten Hag routinely gave the impression he would rather be anywhere than the press conference stage – and by anywhere, that probably meant the training pitch – whereas Amorim is known in Portugal for being smart in this area, open and natural.
One unknown is how Amorim would cope in his non-native language. His English is described by those who know him as “OK” and “good”; he speaks in the language to some of the players at Sporting. But it is one thing to do that, another to get himself and his thoughts across in front of the cameras and notebooks.
How would Amorim deal with United’s high-profile players? He has little experience of this at Sporting. His fellow Portuguese and former Sporting player Bruno Fernandes stands to be an ally. Amorim did not overlap with the United captain, Fernandes having left Sporting for Old Trafford in January 2020. But Amorim’s agent, Raúl Costa, has started to work with Fernandes’s agent, Miguel Pinho, and the connection is plainly there. It is hard to imagine that Amorim has not spoken to Fernandes.
Amorim would have to get used to a different management structure. At Sporting, it has been him and Viana, a former Braga and Portugal teammate. They are the best of friends – as are their wives – and the relationship has been a key part of Sporting’s success. At United, Amorim would have to forge new bonds with the executives Omar Berrada, Dan Ashworth and Jason Wilcox.
Viana will leave Sporting at the end of the season to take over from Txiki Begiristain as the director of football at Manchester City and Amorim could see it as evidence that the cycle at Sporting is coming to a close. Once again, he has a €10m release clause and a suitor ready to pay it.
When Amorim went to Sporting, he felt his way through the pandemic-enforced shutdown and delayed finish to the season, bedding himself in, making his judgments on players, which included who to use from the academy. He is obsessed with the promotion of young talent.
Amorim’s move in the summer was to instigate a squad cleanout, part of a reset that would be the trigger for glory. He has the template. His methods have worked before. Manchester United are another challenge entirely.
