Everyone is talking about Ruben Amorim because the former sporting club and Portugal manager is one of the hottest prospects and he is only 39 years old. Ruben Amorim will be the start of a dynasty at big European side.
Of course, Amorim managed in Portugal moments ago before joining Manchester United. He plays an expansive attacking style and today we’re going to go through everything that you need to know about the next Jose Mourinho. A little bit of a weird comparison in terms of styles because Amorim plays great football.
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Manchester United Appoints Ruben Amorim As Head Coach
Manchester United have confirmed the appointment of head coach Ruben Amorim. He signed a contract until June 2027 with a club option of an additional year. He will join Manchester United on Monday the 11th of November, that’s of course after the international break, once he has fulfilled his obligations with sporting.
Ruben is one of the most exciting and highly rated young coaches in European football, highly decorated as both a player and a coach. His titles include winning the Primera League twice in Portugal with Sporting, the first of which was the club’s first title in 19 years.
Who is Ruben Amorim
A product of the Benfica youth setup, Ruben Amorim is a former midfielder who played his best years at Belenenses and Benfica as well as making 14 appearances for the Portuguese national team. After retiring in 2017 Amorim began his coaching career in the Portuguese third division with Casapia but after giving players instructions without the required coaching badges Amorim was banned from coaching for 12 months. Despite the charges later being suspended Amorim resigned in January 2019.
In September of that year he returned to coaching with Braga’s reserve team. In 2019 Amorim was promoted to take charge of the first team following the sacking of Ricardo Sapinto with the task of taking Braga from eighth in the league to a European spot. Amorim would go on to win 10 out of the 11 domestic games including wins over Benfica, Sporting and Porto in the Portuguese cup before Amorim was ultimately poached by Sporting in March 2020.
With less than four months of top flight coaching, Amorim cost Sporting Lisbon 10 million euros, making him the third most expensive manager in history at the time. At Sporting, Ruben Amorim has been a massive success not only has he toppled Porto and Benfica to win Liga Portugal but he plays exciting football and he’s consistently had to rebuild his squad. More than 200 games later, Ruben Amorim boosts a 71% win rate and is one of the hottest managerial prospects in Europe.
Ruben Amorim Formation/Tactics
Ruben Amorim’s go-to formation is the 3-4-2-1. In terms of roles his team feature a ball-playing goalkeeper and three good ball-playing centre-backs with the two outside centre-backs much more expansive than the one in the centre. In wide areas, Amorim deploys wing-back so the right wing-back more offensive whilst the left wing-back is more of a passing or crossing option from deep.
The two central midfielders are quite functional. In the previous team, Heulmand is the number six destroyer whilst Morita operates more like a number eight and will frequently become a boxer or at least an advanced passing option. Previously these roles were occupied by Joao Paulinha and Mateus Nunes respectively.
In the forward positions Amorim is quite flexible. His striker is a fairly complete forward with the physicality and technical skills to receive passes as well as the ability and aggression to run the channels. Meanwhile the attacking midfielders do vary.
Usually, the left number 10 is a traditional attacking midfielder who creates chances and scores goals whereas the right number 10 could be another attacking midfielder or a dynamic and tricky winger. So in terms of important players for Amorim’s shape and structure of course the outside centre-backs are really relied upon in terms of progressing the ball either wide or into midfield. The wing-backs utilising their width and ability on the ball really stretch the play.
Jenny’s just come into the team at right wing-back and he reminds me a lot of Jeremy Fringpon got the ability to go 1v1 but also left-footed to cut inside from that wing-back position. His position is slightly higher than the left wing-back on the other side of the pitch. Of course the key guy this season is Victor Góqueres.
He is massively evolved Sporting Lisbon’s attacking lineup. Not only has he created for himself, he’s created for teammates but he’s scored some brilliant goals this season. But most importantly he’s that boxer.
Every time the ball gets whipped in as Sporting like to do from crosses he’ll be in the penalty area. But their 3-4-2-1 is a great structure however they do build up in a slightly different way. In possession Sporting like to play out from their goalkeeper.
This can see their build-up shape become a 2-4-2-2 in their own third or even a 3-4-2-2 as they use their goalkeeper as an extra outfielder. Progression is mainly achieved through the outside centre-backs who will play wide to their wing-back, fire line breakers into the forwards or hit balls into space down the line. The narrowness of the attacking midfielders usually draws the opposition full-backs away from the wide areas meaning the clearance into the channels usually becomes good balls for to chase.
So their build-up from goalkeeper is this 4-3-2-2 structure. Pretty meta in European football we see that from Aston Villa, we see that from Brighton, we see that basically from any good football team at the moment. How it’s achieved that Sporting Lisbon is that kind of centre-centre-back, Sebastian Cortes moves into the defensive midfield line, Trincao or the usual right attacking midfielder will drop deep and Morita will move into an advanced area creating this shape that is very, very difficult to press.
The width is not only held by both of the wing-backs but also Góqueres and Pedro Goncalves usually hold wider roles which means if you’re pressing high you’ve got a lot to deal with. So let’s take a look at a few examples of Sporting building out from the back. We can clearly see their build-up structure, the back four with the goalkeeper, the two defensive midfielders and the two attacking midfielders but this is created with positional rotation.
What The Future Looks Like For Manchester United
Ruben Amorim is a bit of a coaching prodigy because he got his first chance with third tier side in 2018, he then moved to Braga B and then got the full-time Braga job and after just 13 games and 10 wins, Sporting CP saw enough in him and enough in his leadership and his tactics to pay a 10 million euro release cause making him the third most expensive manager of all time at that moment in charge in time and since being at Sporting CP.
He has taken them to new heights, he’s re-established them at the top of the Portuguese league and this was a Sporting CP that really needed a leader to take a grip of this football club you know it was in 2018 that about 50-60 Sporting CP supposed fans stormed the training ground attacked some of their key players including Bastos their leading scorer that was in real protest to Bruno de Carvalho the Sporting CP president who was known for putting out pretty inflammatory statements on social media.
He then got accused of inciting violence which he was then acquitted of but it was a really unhappy club and Ruben Amorim has done such an amazing job at Sporting to solidify their place now back at the top of the Portuguese league.
Ruben Amorim is unbeaten this season and that just sums up the level that he’s taken them to, because they’ve won two titles under him in the first one. Sporting rank across all of these leagues points, for instance, they came second only Man City won more points in the league last season than Sporting, they got 90 points, Man City got 91 and then in comparison.
