IF Manchester United players cross Ruben Amorim, they risk the same fate as Gaius Makouta.
Who’s Gaius Makouta? Exactly…
To be fair to the Congolese midfielder, he has gone on to have a decent enough career with Boavista and now Alanyaspor in Turkey.
But only after Amorim gave him a short, sharp shock.
Makouta paid the penalty for rubbing Amorim up the wrong way when the new Manchester United boss started work as manager of Braga’s B team in September 2019.
Goncalo Ferreira was the communications chief at Braga who witnessed Amorim’s incredible rise.
But when Ferreira turned up to watch the new B team boss’ first game, he expressed concern to club president Antonio Salvador.
Ferreira said: “Makouta was one of the best players, but when I arrived at the stadium and saw the team warming up, Makouta wasn’t on the pitch.
“I said, ‘What happened?’, and the president said, ‘Let’s see’. Braga won 5-0.
“It turned out in the first training sessions, Makouta wasn’t satisfied as he wanted to be in the first team.
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“So he wasn’t the best at training — he had quality but wasn’t giving everything.
“I realised that players who aren’t 100 per cent with the team, in solidarity, won’t play for Ruben. He doesn’t care about their status.
“Makouta ended up going out on loan to a club in Bulgaria.”
Amorim won seven of his first eight games in charge of the Braga B team.
Which was enough to convince Salvador to part company with first-team head coach Ricardo Sa Pinto and install Amorim instead.
The first top-flight match of his managerial career was at Belenenses, where he had been a player and a team that was battling near the bottom of the table — like United’s opponents on Sunday, Ipswich.
Amorim immediately put his stamp on Braga by making six changes and switching to three at the back.
Ferreira said: “It took courage to put some of the players that he dropped on the bench.
“There was a big, immediate difference in the team’s energy. We felt like they wanted to kill the opposition.
“Braga won 7-1. That kind of result is not normal in the Portuguese league.
“He won’t put the players on the bench, he will put them in the stands. You will see from the first game the guys he feels aren’t humble or with the team.”
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.
Ferreira believes Amorim’s selection for the Ipswich game will show whether he has found any Gaius Makouta’s in the United ranks.
He won’t put them on the bench, he will put them in the stands. You will see from the first game the guys he feels aren’t humble or with the team.
Ferreira
“I’ve read some things about the training sessions at United and how many players weren’t giving their best. Maybe they didn’t like the former coach.
“Ruben was a player, so he can feel who is with the team and who is not.”
Those who find favour with Amorim can expect success.
After the rout of Belenenses, Braga beat Porto in the league and then the League Cup final.
The next big scalp was Sporting Lisbon before Braga won a league game at Benfica for the first time since 1954.
Amorim had been in charge of Braga for just 13 games when Sporting agreed to trigger his £8.4million release clause to make him their new boss.
Ferreira, now boss of agency Global Take Over, said: “I was very sad, like every Braga director, player, staff member and fan.
“It was the best six months of Braga in terms of energy and growth. There is a before and after Ruben in Braga.”
And, you suspect, a before and after Amorim in the career of Gaius Makouta.
RUBEN AMORIM has responded to being linked with a move to Manchester United.
The Sporting Lisbon coach, 39, is reportedly closing in on a deal worth £8million to become Erik ten Hag’s successor.
Just hours after Ten Hag’s dismissed on Monday morning, it emerged Man Utd chiefs were in talks with Amorim as they zero in on the Sporting boss.
But the ex-Braga coach remained tight-lipped on negotiations when quizzed by the media.
He said: “I was already expecting this question [about Man Utd].
“Obviously I’m not going to talk about the future, because otherwise I’ll always have to comment.
“I’m very proud to be Sporting coach, that’s all.”
