From rejection at Benfica to new Manchester United head coach, BBC Sport charts the rise of Ruben Amorim.
Ruben Amorim pictured in the Benfica boys' team along with friends Bruno Simao and Pedro Russiano "I've got a problem," Ruben Amorim replied when his friend Bruno Simao suggested fixing up a trial game at Portuguese club Belenenses so the childhood pals could be reunited again.
"He was centre-back and the coaches told all the players: 'Take care of him because of his arm,'" recalls Simao. "He came through the game and stayed with us at Belenenses.A desire to succeed and a drive to overcome setbacks are recurring themes in the story of Ruben Filipe Marques Amorim. "We started to play football together 33 years ago at Benfica's school. Ruben was a very aggressive player, fighting for all the balls.
Back in 2007, Belenenses, who were playing in the Primeira Liga, reached the Portuguese cup final, where they faced Sporting at Estadio Nacional - scene of Celtic's glorious 1967 European Cup triumph over Inter Milan. In 2008, after more than 100 league and cup appearances, Amorim's dream came true when the club that had rejected him as a teenager came back to sign him.
In 2017, aged 32, he undertook a postgraduate degree at the University of Lisbon, where Jose Mourinho - Manchester United's manager at the time - was a coordinator and lecturer on its High Performance Coaching course."Ruben was one of the best students and for that reason he had a one-week internship at Manchester United," says Antonio Veloso - professor at the Faculty of Human Kinetics at the University of Lisbon.
Prof Veloso added: "People from Casa Pia asked me: 'Ruben did the programme with you - how do you think he will do as a coach?''He is the second Special One' "At Casa Pia he decided to play a different system and switched to 3-4-3. They went on a run that put them in first position. He is the second 'Special One'."
"Sometimes there was no water, for example, but even with all the difficulties, there was a group, and Ruben - and those players liked Ruben.There were tears shed among the players when Amorim announced he was leaving Casa Pia after just one season.Amorim went on to manage Braga before setting about repairing fractured relationships between officials and fans at Sporting in 2020.
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