Ruben Amorim’s Tactics and Coaching Philosophy
Ruben Amorim is a name which has been linked with the manager’s job at Manchester United if INEOS decide to sack Erik Ten Hag. However, who is Ruben Amorim and would he be a good fit for United?
Ruben Amorim is a 39 year old Portuguese manager, currently in charge of Sporting Lisbon. He is a former midfielder who played for Portuguese clubs Belenenses, Benfica, Braga and Al-Wakrah in Qatar. Amorim won league titles with Benfica where he played from 2008 - 2017 and also made 14 caps for the Portuguese national team.
Amorim retired from professional football in 2017 (aged just 32) and began his coaching career at Casa Pia in July 2018. He resigned just six months later due to a very strange set of circumstances. Amorim was handed a suspension not long into his managerial position at Casa Pia as he was alleged to have taken the role as manager without having the appropriate UEFA coaching credentials. As a result, the club were deducted 6 points and Amorim was handed an initial 12-month ban. Despite the ban ultimately not being imposed, Amorim resigned. He would acquire the relevant UEFA coaching qualifications before taking charge of Braga's B Team later that year.
He was appointed head coach at Braga B in September 2019, eventually taking charge of the first team just three months later in December. At Braga, the young manager won the 2020 Taça da Liga, the league cup of Portugal.
Amorim would go on to take up the manager’s position at Sporting Lisbon in March 2020. A compensation package of €10 million (£8.65 million), was paid to Braga making Amorim at the time the third-most expensive manager ever. Under Amorim’s guidance he led the club to a domestic double, winning the Taça da Liga and the Primeira Liga for the first time in 19 years. Sporting almost went the season unbeaten however lost the penultimate game of the campaign to Benfica in a 4-3 thriller at the Estádio da Luz. Amorim also deservedly won the Primeira Liga's Manager of the Year award for the 2020/2021 season. FC Porto and Benfica were crowned champions in the following seasons but the young Portuguese manager once again led Sporting to another Primeira Liga title in the 2023/2024 season.
TACTICS AND COACHING PHILOSOPHY
Amorim’s preferred formation is 3-4-3 or similarly a 3-4-2-1 shape. His style of play at Sporting places a large emphasis on possession but they are direct and play an attacking brand of football. His team’s are well organised and balanced, pressing high with intensity and working very hard out of possession. A lot of the players Amorim deploys have strong press resistant qualities and are comfortable playing in tight spaces.
Amorim mostly utilises a ‘back three’ in defence and in build up he wants the central centre back to move into midfield, forming a 2-3 buildup shape in the middle. He wants progression through the middle of the pitch and the centre backs can facilitate this connecting with the double pivot. The central centre back pushing forward helps create additional passing options and angles, allowing Amorim’s Sporting side to be very fluid in build up. The team can move the ball quickly and perform well coordinated movements to build from the back. Players like Inacio, Debast and Diomande are instructed to look for line breaking passes however if central progression isn’t possible, Sporting will also look to bring the wingbacks into play if possible. The wingbacks aren’t necessarily regularly used in build up but will help out if under pressure. Morten Hjulmand is often the deepest midfielder, but will rotate with the central centre back to drop into defence to cover. Hjulmand’s Japanese midfield parter Hidemasa Morita has box to box qualities which helps give the team options to begin attacking phases of play.
Sporting have a wide variety of attacking principles to their play and are consistent in creating chances. The right and left side forwards (more recently Trincao and Golcalves) will sometimes come centrally or look to exploit space in behind. Amorim encourages rotations for the players to create and find space, as well as creating overloads in key areas when trying to break the opposition down. Sporting will often attack with a front five, the front three forwards with the two wing backs supporting. The front three are very fluid and the central striker (usually Gyokeres) will occupy the half space areas and bring the wingbacks into play, or look to make quick switches to the opposite side. The Swedish striker combines well with the wingbacks to get into dangerous positions in the box and often punish the opposition. Gyokeres has been in superb form since joining Sporting from Coventry in 2023 and last season (23/24) returned an impressive 43 goals and 14 assists.
Amorim has built an organised side who are competitive. He has identified player profiles which function well in his system providing a good balance throughout the squad. Amorim has worked closely with Sporting’s Director of Football Hugo Viana to recruit players they know will suit his tactics, understand their role in the team and can hit the ground running.
ACADEMY AND YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
Amorim has also shown commitment to develop and transition some of the younger players into the first team and has promoted multiple academy graduates during his tenure at Sporting. He has immersed himself in the club’s youth teams and has no problem placing his trust in the younger players. Previous managers had unfortunately somewhat neglected their world famous academy, the Alcochete, and not used it to it’s optimal capacity. Their academy has been renowned in the past for producing names such as Luis Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo so fans could not understand why they were no longer developing young emerging talent. The club simply hadn’t been giving youth players a chance until Amorim took charge. At the end of Amorim’s first season he began integrating youth players and some of those still form part of his starting lineup today.
He trusts the youth and knows exactly when they’re ready to make the jump to the senior side. When Amorim took over Sporting in the 18/19 season, (according to TransferMarkt) the average age of the squad was 26.6 years old, fielding the 11th youngest team in the Portuguese League. As of a few weeks into the 24/25 season, Sporting have the second youngest team at an average age of 23.9 years old, behind only FC Porto.
It is worth noting that Amorim has also lost key players over the years such as Pedro Porro, Palhinha, Matheus Nunes, Manuel Ugarte and Nuno Mendes but still managed to keep Sporting competing at the top of the Primeira Liga.
WEAKNESSES AND CONCLUSION
Some critics have claimed Sporting’s press isn’t as aggressive or intense as it could be, at times allowing the opposition to bypass it too easily. Using the central centre back to push up in build up, focusing on central progression (not using the full backs) can also be deemed quite limited and one dimensional. Collectively the team doesn’t have too many alternatives if their Plan A for build up doesn’t work. Whether Amorim’s tactical weaknesses would succeed in a fast, frantic and more physical Premier League remains to be seen but he is also an adaptable tactician.
Amorim has made a big impact in a short time at Sporting, demonstrating plenty of qualities to be a top level manager. His teams play exciting offensive football, scoring plenty of goals whilst dominating and controlling games. He wasted no time in transforming a stagnant Sporting side back to the summit of Portuguese football whilst still in the early stages of his coaching career. Amorim is innovative in his ideas, has good man management and at just 39 years old, he has the potential to suit long term club projects. He was heavily linked with Premier League jobs in the summer of 2024 (predominantly Liverpool and West Ham) but he ultimately opted to stay in Portugal. Amorim was born in Lisbon and he just might think he has unfinished business at his hometown club. One thing’s certain, it’s only a matter of time before Premier League clubs come calling for one of the best up and coming managers in European football.