Rúben Amorim’s appointment at Manchester United is the latest step in a “meteoric rise” for the Portuguese coach and he will be able to deal with the step up.
That’s according to the man who first hired him as a manager, Carlos Pires, who admits he always knew the 39-year-old was special in comments relayed by O Jogo.
Amorim was announced as the new Manchester United manager today following Erik ten Hag’s sacking earlier this week.
It brings an end to a four-year spell with Sporting Club de Portugal in which he’s managed 228 games, enjoyed a points per game record of 2.28 and won two Primeira Liga titles, the Taça da Liga and the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira. He’s also been the Primeira Liga’s Manager of the Season in 2021 and 2024.
The hope is that he can turn things around for Manchester United after a disappointing start to the season that sees them sitting 14th in the table and seven points outside of the top four.
Pires was the man who appointed him at his first club and admits that he new Amorim was different the first time he met him.
“If I saw that he was different, yes, that was obvious,” he said.
“Now that, less than seven years later, he would be at Manchester United, I don’t think anyone could imagine it happening that quickly. It’s been a meteoric rise.
“If you ask me if the first time, I sat down with him I thought he would be special, I confess that I did. It’s a lot of credit to him. Nobody gave him anything.
“I see Manchester United a little like I saw Sporting at the time. At the time, many people would have thought that Sporting would be a coaches’ cemetery, because it had been like that in recent years. United, at a different level, is in an identical situation.
“I think that, above all, it is good for Manchester United too because it seems to me that it is a tailor-made project for Rúben. It has everything to work out. It’s a risk, it’s always a risk, but Rúben also likes the risk. It seems to me to be a project that suits him.”
