They always knew Ruben Amorim was a special one at the faculty of human kinetics. “I interviewed him for the course and from the start it was obvious,” says Prof António Veloso, José Mourinho’s former classmate, who runs the high-performance football coaching course at the faculty, which is affiliated to the University of Lisbon.
“The students needed to do an essay on specialist topics and Ruben’s results were fantastic. He had a leadership role in the group. When we were doing tactical drills on the pitch all the other students were looking at Ruben’s and asking for his opinion. But he was very humble.”
Perhaps then he is not an exact replica of the original Special One, who also studied at the faculty and remains a close friend of Veloso. The professor recalls Mourinho as a 26-year-old, when he had dropped out of business school and conceded that becoming a professional footballer was outside of his skill set. He had signed up for the sports science course and took an especially enthusiastic interest in the university football league and the team of professors of which he was player-coach. “The same killer instinct he showed afterwards was already there,” Veloso says. “I remember him telling his teammates: ‘Don’t be soft! Be tough!’”
Portuguese coaches are all the rage, as Amorim’s appointment confirms. Where once the UK sent managers such as Sir Bobby Robson, Graeme Souness and John Mortimore to Portugal, a line stretching back to Arthur John in the 1920s, now there are as many Portuguese as English coaches in the Premier League. They are also the fourth-best represented nation in terms of Premier League players, after England, Brazil and France. Portugal has a population of 10.5 million and it is hard to think of a nation punching more above its weight in European football.
Part of the answer as to why is perhaps found in Cruz Quebrada, the sleepy Lisbon suburb overlooking the spectacular Tagus estuary, where the faculty that helped form the current and former United managers is located. Everyone knows Mourinho got his big break as Robson’s translator at Sporting but fewer recall that Mourinho’s initial pathway into football was academic.
Veloso stayed in academia after his sports science course but also remained in touch with his classmate, so when he wanted to set up a master’s degree course in football coaching, he took Mourinho’s brain and downloaded it into an academic course.
“It was exactly like that,” Veloso says. “José was always mentioning that he studied here and naming our faculty as his alma mater. If we were designing a finance course, we would definitely use someone [in that sector] of his level to help us. So I called him and said: ‘I think we have a unique opportunity to develop a programme based on your knowledge of football, linked with your academic background. You’re in a unique position, having a scientific view of your profession.’”
The course they developed covers everything Mourinho considered important, though not any of his dark arts. They teach psychology that goes well beyond the superficial motivational pep talk, a deeper level of physiology and how to manage upwards to a Russian oligarch or private equity fund manager.
The EFL chair, Rick Parry, runs the module on governance, including role-playing how to respond when your player has made a racist remark, and a body language expert instructs on non-verbal communication so as to transmit positive messages to players from the bench (Thomas Tuchel, take note).
Amorim was accepted as one of the early intakes, in 2017, even though, as a footballer at Belenenses and Benfica, he had never been to university. Special provision is made for smart candidates who, for obvious reasons, have never completed a first degree. Whether the course will provide him with an edge in Manchester is unclear, given Carlos Vicens, Pep Guardiola’s No 2, was a star pupil the year after Amorim attended. Pedro Marques, Liverpool’s director of football development, and two of Amorim’s assistants have studied on separate courses at the faculty.
It is telling that academia and football are comfortable bedfellows in a way they have never been in England. Mutual suspicion in the Great British class war has meant those in ivory towers don’t mix with workers at the grassroots on the pitch. But Portugal is different and another Manchester United man, Carlos Queiroz, is largely responsible.
It was Prof Mirandela da Costa, who headed up the football department at the faculty and was director general of the Portuguese board of sport, who asked his best student, Queiroz, to revamp their football in the 80s. Queiroz, whose paper on youth development and coaching became a sacred text, subsequently coached what became known as the Golden Generation, starring Luís Figo, Rui Costa and Gil Gomes, to Under-20 World Cup titles in 1989 and 1991.
From that acorn grew the mighty oaks of the country’s football, which arguably could be personified in Mourinho, Cristiano Ronaldo and their mutual agent, Jorge Mendes, whose innate understanding of the 21st century football market did so much to conquer European leagues. “José opened the door for Portuguese coaches,” Veloso says. “But it was more like a gate than a door. And Ronaldo opened a door for players.” A Portuguese player tends to come kite-marked with quality assurance.
“The starting point of the revolution was the link between academia and the Portuguese federation,” Veloso says. “And then we got lucky to get some people who were extremely good. But it would be difficult to imagine someone [at a British university] asking your top Manchester United coach to organise a coach education programme such as ours.”
When Sir Alex Ferguson retired, it was Harvard Business School that tapped into his expertise by signing him up for lectures. Oxford and Cambridge universities, both of whom had representation on the FA council until last year, probably never considered that an option. Veloso, who knows plenty of open-minded people in British academia, as well as talented graduates at Premier League clubs, says: “You need to have both worlds together, with experienced people working at a high level.”
If Amorim can succeed at Old Trafford, perhaps he can be part of bridging that gap.
