COMMENT: After 228 games and 161 victories, Ruben Amorim is leaving Sporting. After the stumbling block of getting on a plane to negotiate with West Ham in the closing stages of last season, as well as links with Manchester City, the 39-year-old Portuguese coach will actually fulfil his goal of coaching in the Premier League by taking over the reins at Manchester United.
On 5 March 2020, more than four years ago, Amorim's words during his official presentation as Sporting coach made Portuguese football history: "What if it goes well?" It did.
After instant success at SC Braga, Amorim took over as first-team coach after a few short months with the B team, replacing the well-known Ricardo Sa Pinto on the bench.
He agreed to swap the stability offered by Antonio Salvador to take the helm at a bigger club, but one with glaring instability, especially in terms of sport.
The similarities are all too evident four years later. Amorim has never hidden his ambitious side and after agreeing to leave SC Braga for Sporting mid-season, he won the national championship a year later.
He intends to do exactly the same now, swapping the league leaders, the defending champions, with a stability probably never before seen at Alvalade, for a team now 14th in the Premier League, a veritable graveyard of managers since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson. But what if it goes well?
Of course, the news hit like a bomb. At the Alvalade and inside Portuguese football. In the Sporting dressing room and among the fans. Manchester United is paying Sporting exactly what the Lions paid SC Braga for the young coach.
The difference is that Amorim is now an established coach, no longer a promise but a certainty in Portuguese and world football.
10 million euros is a bargain, a drop in Manchester United's economic ocean, but a real bucket of cold water and not at all a financial treat for Sporting.
It is enough to recall that in 2012 (12 years ago!) Chelsea paid Porto €15 million for Andre Villas-Boas, now Porto's president.
At Manchester United, Amorim will take over a team in pieces, but without a shadow of a doubt a squad much better than the one he found at Alvalade, which immediately prompted him to look at the academy and promote players such as Nuno Mendes, Goncalo Inacio, Eduardo Quaresma and Tiago Tomas.
Amorim is ambitious, that much is clear, but he is also stubborn. And at Alvalade he made that clear in his immediate change of tactical system to a 3-4-3 formation.
And he also insisted to the end that the striker was only Paulinho, before the arrival (and obvious influence) of Viktor Gyokeres.
He can also be compared to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, who gave in and 'accepted' Erling Haaland, with similar results to Gyokeres.
At Manchester United, Amorim will not have Gyokeres or Paulinho, but he will have Rasmus Hojlund, another Scandinavian, and Joshua Zirkzee, a Dutchman.
Can we draw parallels? I think so, because it's common knowledge that the coach will change (almost everything) at Old Trafford, from the tactical system to the way he communicates - and his English, though rusty, will help him in the early days.
At Manchester United, he won't have the 'exceptional' Pedro Goncalves or the 'boring' Nuno Santos, but he will have a loyal squire in Bruno Fernandes, his new Sebastian Coates, with the captain's armband - an extension of the coach on the pitch and the right arm to implement his ideas quickly.
Of course, there are questions about the 39-year-old Portuguese coach's ability to stop Manchester United's downward spiral. It was the same with Villas-Boas at Chelsea. It was even similar with Jose Mourinho.
It's only natural. Who, on 5 March 2020, believed that this young coach, for whom Sporting will earn €10 million, would turn the club into the most stable and consistent title contender in the Portuguese league? I would say nobody except himself, Frederico Varandas and Hugo Viana. It went well. It went very well.
Above Amorim's expectations at Alvalade, there is little left to fulfil other than the double championship, which he will be able to celebrate at the Marques in May.
And I have no doubt that he will arrive at Old Trafford with a smile and a sense of achievement. Because Amorim is more than ready for the Premier League. There are no questions asked. He can handle it. Full stop.
