RUBEN AMORIM shared his big regret that his wife Maria loves to tease him with.
The new Manchester United boss is preparing for his first game in charge against Ipswich this weekend.
It has been a long journey to that position, from heartbreak at his release from Benfica as a teenager, to winning titles with the club he later re-joined in his career.
His love for football and its priority in his life meant he was unable to complete his school exams – and he still regrets not having a better education.
Amorim, 39, revealed he still gets teased by his wife, Maria Joao Diogo, for leaving school before taking his exams, aged 18.
By then, the player who was released by Benfica as a youngster had already signed a professional contract with another Lisbon side, Belenenses.
Amorim told Portuguese paper Expresso: “I had an agreement with my mother.
“I would continue at school until I signed a professional contract.
“I signed when I was 17. Today, I regret it a lot. If I’d taken my exams, I could have done the 12th year.
“I could also have entered a top college.
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WHEN Ruben Amorim took charge of Sporting Lisbon in March 2020, one club official compared their situation to the “walking dead”, writes Jordan Davies.
Optimism and hope was at an all-time low.
But the Amorim-effect was almost instantaneous, guiding the Portuguese sleeping giants to their first league title for 19 years in 2020/21, losing just once and only conceding 20 goals.
Since then, Sporting have lifted another league title in 2023/24 – as well as two League Cups – and currently sit top with nine wins from nine this term.
He may be young, but Amorim already has an eye for rebuilding and revitalising fallen super powers with his infectious charisma and intense tactical philosophy that hardly ever wavers.
The “walking dead” at Manchester United must be praying for a similar sort of revival.
And they may just get it from one of the most talented young coaches on the continent – a man accustomed to breathing new life back into crumbling institutions such as Old Trafford.
Amorim has spent the last decade dreaming of one day gracing England’s Premier League, such was his admiration for an ex-United boss in Jose Mourinho growing up.
Often nicknamed ‘Mourinho 2.0’, Amorim spent a week with his coaching idol in an internship capacity at United’s Carrington training base in 2018, going on to cite him as his “reference point”.
United should not be expecting a mini-Mourinho, as Amorim said himself: “Mourinho is one of a kind. There won’t be another Mourinho. Mourinho is unique.”
And yet, you cannot help but compare the two.
For all the mismanagement in the Old Trafford hot seats over the years, this would be a real get – finally a slap in the face United’s Prem rivals have no answer for.
“My wife is an electrotechnical engineer and she throws that in my face every day.”
Maria is also an interior designer and she married Amorim in 2013 – the couple have two children together.
The couple got married in 2013 in front of 160 guests at a beautiful ceremony at the Palácio de S. Marcos church in Coimbra.
Together with Raquel Viana, she created Dois Tons, who offer interior, home staging, lighting, and turnkey projects as well as preparation of plans and layouts.
Their website states that the objective is to design spaces in which “the client’s personality, needs and lifestyle become the pillar of the creative process”.
Raquel Viana is the wife of Sporting Lisbon’s sporting director Hugo Viana.
Viana will join Man City, where he will replace the departing Txiki Begiristain at the Etihad next season.
