Who is Rúben Amorim? New Man Utd manager who won Sporting's first league title in 19 years

On Friday, Manchester United confirmed that they had reached an agreement with Portuguese club Sporting to appoint Rûben Amorim as their new head coach. The news came less than a week after Erik Ten Hag was relieved of his duties at Old Trafford. Amorim has signed a deal with the Premier League giants until the summer of 2027 and will take charge of Man Utd's first team on November 11, with interim boss Rudd van Nistelrooy to take charge of the team until then. Amorim's first game will be against Ipswich away on November 24th. The club have reportedly paid a €10 million release clause for Amorim's signature, with a further €1m in compensation.

How good is Rúben Amorim?

Although Amorim spent much of his playing career at Benfica, he first made his name as a young coach at Primeira Liga rivals Braga, where he came through the clubs ranks first as reserve team manager and was then appointed first team manager at the tender age of 34. Despite only being at the club for less than six months, Amorim guided the club to the Portuguese Cup and 10 wins in their remaining 13 league games. At the end of the season he was then quickly snapped up by Sporting and has been nothing short of remarkable since returning to the nation’s capital. Over the course of the last three full seasons Amorim has won two Portuguese Cups as well as taking Sporting to their first league title in 19 years, earning the young star the Manager of the Year award in the Primeira Liga. “Amorim is highly rated here in Portugal,” said Gonçalo Tristão Santos, Transfermarkt’s Portuguese Content Manager. “He is a very respected coach, there are almost no doubts about his qualities. Beyond that, people appreciate the way he communicates: he is a coach who is very sincere and direct in the answers he gives, always respecting the opponent. He seems to be a very upright and friendly person.”

What style of football does Rúben Amorim play?

Like all successful coaches, Amorim seems to be perfectly adept at changing his style of tactics and systems to suit the players he has. Although the young manager seems to prefer a back three consisting of three central defenders at all times, he has shown at Sporting that he can tweak his approach to continue challenging for titles. “He won the league title by primarily playing on the counterattack,” noted Santos, when asked about Amorim’s tactics. “Sporting were a team that played deeper down the field but quickly attacked the opponent's goal and it was very effective in scoring. However, in the following seasons, he ended up adapting Sporting's playing style and the team began to play differently with more ball possession and spending more time in the opponent's half. The team did not win the league again, but Sporting's football became more attractive and unpredictable. In the 2022/23 season, Sporting finished in fourth place and had a very dull style of play, but it was a season that went completely wrong. However, this season, we are seeing the most dynamic Sporting side since Amorim's arrival.”

How good is Rúben Amorim at developing young players?

Since becoming Sporting’s head coach in 2020, the Lisbon club have spent €253.2 million on signing new players. While that is slightly more than Porto (€199.45m), it is considerably less than Benfica’s spending in that period (€411.05m). When we couple that with the fact that Sporting have made €372m in player sales in that period of time, it certainly points to a club that have had to sell star players and develop new ones. And that also seems to be something Amorim is perfectly comfortable doing. ”Amorim is a coach who likes to invest in young players, whether from the Sporting academy or not,” said Santos. “There are several examples of this: Nuno Mendes, Tiago Tomás, Gonçalo Inácio, Pedro Porro, Matheus Nunes, Pedro Gonçalves, Eduardo Quaresma, Manuel Ugarte, Youssef Chermiti or Geny Catamo.”