Ruben Amorim’s trip to London for West Ham United talks brightened up Monday afternoon’s sports media, it’s nice to have a big surprising story which isn’t based on a scandal.
The trip to the English capital was brief, with today’s edition of A Bola pointing out it only lasted for three hours. According to the Portuguese newspaper ‘West Ham’s project was not to his liking and Liverpool is further away’.
Prior to the Hammers intervention, and ignoring much of the Liverpool noise, mainly coming from England over the weekend, there had been growing claims in Portugal that Amorim could stay where he is.
Sporting fans had been taking banners to games pleading with him, the manager revealed his son didn’t want a change, and the local media were explaining just what a loss he’d be.
Winning the title and playing Champions League football with Sporting next season is of course attractive. Regardless, Amorim has a career and financial future to think about and A Bola make it clear he was always prepared to listen to good offers.
That’s why he and his agent Raul Costa travelled to England, but what he heard didn’t convince him, and the ‘continuity scenario returns to the coach’s head’.
Amorim is enjoying another day off today, with Sporting returning to training tomorrow. It’s not expected he’ll try and give any justifications for his West Ham trip, because he doesn’t feel like he’s done anything wrong.
That’s the Portuguese media slant too, and despite a couple of dissenting voices on Monday evening, there’s been a mature approach to a man listening to a job proposal.
A Bola go on to say Amorim ‘did not identify with the West Ham project’. They don’t say why, but this could largely be about power.
Tuesday saw a Portuguese report state West Ham had offered Amorim freedom to build a squad, and that’s why he was keener on them than Michael Edwards controlled Liverpool.
Perhaps that report was wide of the mark, and Amorim would have been expected to work with the tools placed at his disposal by Tim Steidten.
It’s just an idea, but would certainly explain why the briefest of trips seems to have killed the whole thing.
Amorim currently works with Hugo Viana, who you may remember from his playing days. He’s been Sporting director of football since 2018 and works well with Amorim, with it often feeling like the manager is the more powerful of the two.
The pair even work closely with Sporting president Frederico Varandas, a medical doctor who won the club’s 2018 elections and started to calm things after a period of instability and drama that would make even West Ham blush.
Amorim knows what he has and is perhaps reluctant to leave that to take on a new task and sever scrutiny with one hand tied behind his back.
