Mourinho at Porto vs Amorim at Sporting: how do they compare?

For one week in 2018, Jose Mourinho had a second shadow.

Going behind every move made by then-Manchester United The manager was a recently retired Portuguese midfielder studying for his coaching badges by the name of Ruben Amorim. The relationship between these compatriots has since been completed The appointment of Amorim as United’s last manager.

Like Mourinho, who established himself as Europe’s most promising young manager thanks to a trophy-laden spell at Porto in the early 2000s, Amorim wooed United with plenty of praise at Sporting CP.

Mourinho left Portugal to go to Chelsea Premier Leaguequickly ending the club’s long wait for a Premier League title as the first managerial appointment under the club’s new ownership. As Amorim tries to replicate the same feat for INEOS at United, here’s how his Sporting side compare to Mourinho’s Porto.

“There are many poets in football,” Mourinho once said, “but poets don’t win titles.” Amorim – which was named after “the poet”. Cristiano Ronaldo during their time together in the Portuguese national team, they would disagree.

The latest Portuguese coaching phenom has led Sporting to a pair of top-flight crowns during his four full seasons in Lisbon. Before overseeing last season’s title, Amorim led Sporting to the 2020/21 trophy, ending the club’s 19-year wait for domestic glory. By the way, Sporting’s previous triumph (2001/02) came during Mourinho’s first campaign in charge of Porto.

Two decades ago, the Portuguese giants were forced to turn to a 39-year-old former translator who had overseen just 34 professional games after slipping to fifth place midway through the season. Mourinho managed to salvage a place in the top three, but this still represented the club’s lowest league position in 20 years. They would win the league title in each of their two full seasons.

Amorim’s Sporting boast very similar statistics to Mourinho’s great team, even if they did win the title in 2022 and 2023. Between Amorim’s arrival in Lisbon and his appointment at United, Sporting’s win rate of 77% represented the highest of any team in Europe. the first ten leagues.

“We can do some good things,” Mourinho said ahead of Porto’s first season at the club Champions League. “But I don’t think we can win it. Only the Sharks who can afford to spend £40m on a player can.”

This financial disparity has only widened in the two decades since, which helps explain why Amorim’s Sporting never progressed beyond the quarter-finals of a UEFA competition during his tenure. That’s not to say they haven’t claimed some notable scalps, memorably beating Tottenham Hotspur and arsenalbut Amorim cannot come close to Mourinho’s European pedigree.

Leading Porto to the 2003 UEFA Cup was impressive enough, even if the final triumph over Celtic was a grueling affair, but that noble crown pales in comparison to the unthinkable achievement of League glory of Champions a year later.

Abandoning their 4-3-3 for a more compact 4-3-1-2 for continental fixtures, Mourinho’s side lost just one game en route to the latest Champions League title for a club outside of Europe’s top five leagues. This one setback came out Real Madrid‘s Galacticos in a group stage campaign that concluded with a draw at home to the Spanish giants.

Porto then knocked Manchester United out of the round of 16. After a 2-1 win in Portugal, Mourinho’s side secured victory in the tie with Costinha’s 90th-minute goal at Old Trafford, which the enthusiastic young manager infamously celebrated by knocking down the line band Lyon, Deportivo La Coruña and finally Monaco would go down as Mourinho overcame the sharks of Europe.

Before embarking on his coaching career, Amorim said Express Tribune in November 2017: “I like (Pep) Guardiola, but for me, the role model is Mr. Mourinho.”

While Mourinho eventually evolved into the anti-Guardiola, conceding possession and mastering the art of defending deep before striking on the counter, he hadn’t gone through his deliberately bad arc when he took over at Porto.

Upon his appointment in 2002, Mourinho stated: “I promise I intend to play in attack.” The youth coach, still to mark BarcelonaThe decision to hire Guardiola instead of him in 2008, he added that this style “would never include a defensive way of playing”.

Amorim is much more pragmatic than the young Mourinho. Fully willing for his team to cluster in a compact 5-4-1 block off the ball, Sporting conceded the fewest shots of any team in the Portuguese top flight last season. Amorim’s brilliantly punched outfit can advance in transition or dominate possession. Mourinho, by comparison, was a big proponent of keeping the ball at Porto.

The former Barça coach spoke of “resting with the ball” and deliberating on keeping “possession for possession” during his time in Portugal. This represents a dramatic change in philosophy compared to his time at Real Madrid, when one of Mourinho’s rules was: “He who has the ball is afraid.”

This obsession with possession represented a way for Mourinho’s side to catch their breath after being let down in the final third by aggressive pressing. This is a trait Amorim’s teams share, but looking beyond the specifics, his wider approach to match preparation is clearly taken straight from Mourinho’s playbook.

As Amorim has explained in the past, he admires how Mourinho “analyzes opponents very well and sets up his team, not only with a certain style of play but thinking a lot about how to adapt to win”. This is another habit the pair share: winning.

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