Who is Ruben Amorim? Manchester United’s incoming new hire considered a rising managerial talent

Manchester United are reportedly close to hiring Sporting Lisbon’s Ruben Amorim as Erik Ten Hag’s replacement, landing one of Europe’s rising managerial stars in the process. The Red Devils’ approach is in line with other top clubs around the continent like Liverpool and Bayern Munich, who respectively hired Arne Slot and Vincent Kompany in recent months as a new crop of managerial talent begins to fill some of Europe’s biggest job vacancies. The 39-year-old Amorim has been considered for some notable roles, too – his name was in the mix at Liverpool before they hired Slot, and he held conversations with West Ham last spring before they went with Julen Lopetegui.

Though Amorim is somewhat inexperienced, his record during his six-year managerial career so far inspires confidence as United aim to reverse course after a turbulent spell under Ten Hag. Here’s a look back at Amorim’s managerial career so far ahead of his major move to England.

Trophies

Braga

• Taca da Liga: 2019-20

Sporting Lisbon

• Primeira Liga: 2020-21, 2023-24
• Taca da Liga: 2020-21, 2021-22

Individual

• Primeira Liga Manager of the Season: 2020-21, 2023-24

Managerial career

Amorim has coached exclusively in his native Portugal so far, beginning his career with third-division side Casa Pia in 2018. He resigned from the job in January 2019 after he received a year-long suspension for giving instructions during a match without having the requisite coaching licenses, with the team also receiving a points deduction.

The suspension was later lifted in Sept. 2019, when he took charge of Braga’s reserve team, which also competed in the third division. He won seven out of eight games in three months before replacing first-team manager Ricardo Sa Pinto. He took over when they were eighth in the Primeira Liga and took them to third place with 10 wins in 13 games. Amorim also led Braga to their first trophy in four years, winning the Taca da Liga in January 2020, and oversaw their first away win at Benfica in 65 years.

After three months at Braga, he landed a career-changing job at Sporting Lisbon after they fired Silas. Sporting spent around $10 million on his release clause from Braga, making him one of the most expensive managerial hires at the time, and the club went on to finish fourth that season.

Sporting underwent a major rebuild ahead of the 2020-21 season, with future Bayern player Joao Palhinha and future Tottenham Hotspur defender Pedro Porro joining the club alongside a handful of others. Amorim won his second consecutive Taca da Liga that season and led Sporting to their first league title in 19 years, winning manager of the year honors in the process.

They won the cup again in the 2021-22 season and finished second, with Amorim becoming the fastest manager to win 50 games in the Primeira Liga that season. They finished fourth the following season before winning the cup and league in the 2023-2024 season. So far this campaign, Sporting are off to a perfect start in the domestic league with nine wins out of nine and rank eighth in the UEFA Champions League with seven points out of nine.

Style of play

Amorim prefers to play a 3-4-3 or a 3-4-2-1 formation, settling on the positional style through a formative experience very early on in his tenure at Casa Pia.

“His coaching career actually began with Casa Pia, then a third-tier club, where it almost ended as soon as it had begun,” journalist Guillem Balague said, per the BBC. “He lost his first two games and, with his pride hurt and doubts setting in, he announced if he lost the third game he would quit. In the next match he changed the system and played a back three for the first time. The system worked and from then on he remained unbeaten at the club. He also felt he had found the formation that allowed him to produce the football he wanted – one invariably linked to the spectacle for the fans. From there, he never looked back.”

Amorimi’s teams like to possess the ball and have defensive stability that allows them to have a multifaceted approach to the attack. They also build out of the back, with the center backs frequently serving as the starting point of an attack, helping to overload the midfield. The front three, meanwhile, are flexible to rotate their positions as they look for space. Collectively, Amorim’s teams also build a high-intensity press while out of possession.

The current Sporting manager has gotten the best out of a handful of players, several of whom have gone on to play at bigger clubs. Palhinha and Porro are just two names on a list that now includes Manuel Ugarte, who joined Manchester United over the summer from Paris Saint-Germain. Forward Viktor Gyokeres, meanwhile, is one of the breakout stars of this season in Europe so far with 16 goals and four assists in 15 games.

Though Amorim did coincidentally spend a week with Jose Mourinho when he coached United before beginning his own coaching career, the 39-year-old’s style of play is a variation of a more attack-minded approach than Mourinho prefers. Rather, he considers Jorge Jesus more of a mentor after playing for him for nearly a decade at Belenenses, Braga and Benfica.