Manchester United took the risk of hiring untested coach Ruben Amorim

“Ruben is one of the most exciting and highly regarded young managers in European football,” United said.

United, record 20-time English champions, have not won the Premier League since Ferguson’s last season. Amorim’s task will be to revive the glory of a club that has lagged far behind the best in England and Europe – something that has surpassed the clubs of Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and more recently Erik ten Hag, fired on Monday.

United are currently 14th in the 20-team Premier League, with lost four of the first nine games.

Amorim, a former Portugal midfielder who spent most of his club career with Benfica, joined after United paid 11 million euros ($12 million) to release him from his contract with Sporting Lisbon, which he won two Portuguese titles in four full seasons. .

Sporting also reported this. statement he will receive an additional approximately 1.66 million euros ($1.8 million) for contractual reasons and commissions.

Amorim has only worked in Portugal and has no experience of managing some of the game’s best players under the constant scrutiny of the world’s media.

“He comes from a big club in Portugal,” United defender Diogo Dalot said of Amorim on British broadcaster Sky Sports, “but I always say it almost quadruples the intensity and pressure (at United).”

Amorim ended Sporting’s 19-year Portuguese championship drought in 2021, ending the dominance of rivals Benfica and Porto, and won the League Cup that year in his first season as manager.

Sporting also won the league last season and have won all nine of their matches this season, cementing Amorim’s status as a rising manager. In his only other top-flight role, with Braga, he won the League Cup in a spell that lasted less than a season.

Amorim will finish his time at Sporting with a game against Estrela da Amador on Friday, at home to Manchester City in the Champions League on Tuesday and a trip to Braga on November 10.

Ruud van Nistelrooy, meanwhile, will remain United’s caretaker boss, taking charge of three games before the international break, all at home against Chelsea and Leicester in the Premier League, either side of the Europa League tie against PAOK.

Amorim’s first game for United will be away to Ipswich on November 24.

He was reportedly in talks with West Ham last season before the London side hired Julen Lopetegui, and was also linked with replacing Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool before Arne Slot was appointed.

He now leads one of the world’s most storied clubs, which has been in decline for the past decade and is facing a period of upheaval following the arrival of a new football management team led by British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe.

Ratcliffe will hope he has signed another coaching gem: Amorim becomes United’s youngest manager since 31-year-old Wilf McGuinness took charge in 1969.

Following the appointment of Ten Hag, who came from the Dutch league, United continue to move away from hiring high-profile managers such as Van Gaal and Mourinho.

The Premier League now has four managers aged over 30, with Amorim joining Brighton’s Fabian Hurtzeler (31), Ipswich’s Kieran McKenna (38) and Southampton’s Russell Martin (38).