NEW boss Ruben Amorim will be hoping to do more than just a good impersonation of a football manager at Manchester United.
Yet behind the scenes, Amorim is known for being a good mimic.
In fact, throughout his playing career at Belenenses and Benfica, Amorim was a massive joker and did impressions of his gaffers.
And Amorim, 39, has kept his sense of humour.
He said: “I’m a very jolly guy, but more within my closed circle. I was always given to clowning around — and I did it a lot.
“I miss the changing room a lot because you are a child there. I only became an adult when I stopped playing football.
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“But I’ve always played the clown and I’m good at imitating.
“I often imitated Jorge Jesus [his ex-Benfica boss] and he knows it. Always with respect.
“Once he went to a Uefa coaches meeting and missed training — and I took over training.
“His assistant coach, the fitness coach, the physios, all came to see the session and see what I was like.”
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What Man Utd said on hiring EACH of their post-Fergie managers
David Moyes
“All the skills needed to build on United’s phenomenal legacy.”
Louis van Gaal
“One of the outstanding managers in the game today.”
Jose Mourinho
“Quite simply the best manager in the game today.”
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
“A wealth of experience, with a desire to give young players their chance and a deep understanding of the culture of the club.”
Erik ten Hag
“One of the most exciting and successful coaches in Europe.”
Ruben Amorim
“One of the most exciting and highly rated young coaches in European football.”
Amorim’s cousin, Bruno Simao, said: “He loves imitating people and is very good at it. He’s really funny.”
But new Man Utd manager Amorim also learnt something serious from former boss Jesus — that players can sometimes be given too much information by a coach.
He told Portuguese paper Record: “He wanted to give a lot of information, so you have to have more time training and watching more videos.
“It improved the team but exhausted a lot of players, so every two years he had to clean out the squad. Players can’t always take so much information.
“Some can handle that pressure and others can’t.
“Jorge is a coach who is tiring. It’s a lot of intensity and tactical information, every day loaded on to the player.
“I worked a lot of years with him and it’s obvious that I have a similar level of work ethic to him.
“But we have different personalities. I’ll be hard without being tiresome.
“You have to create a link with players, always leave them with a positive thought, happy about training, about playing, so that they can put in a good performance.
“All players feel it, but they also feel a great will during the game, when things are going well and you’re winning because you’re comfortable and have all the information.
“That helps you a lot to be a better player. If you know the opponent and know what you have to do in every situation in the game, you go more freely on to the pitch.
“A football coach isn’t like an engineer where you do this and it’s always right. No, you need a lot of chemistry with the group you have.
“If you don’t have chemistry, you have a bad result.”
Yet Amorim believes all managers should avoid social media.
And he told Maisfutebol: “I don’t look at anything, because I can’t look. Anyone who is a coach shouldn’t look.
“It’s impossible to stand all the comments and all that information. That’s why I don’t have it.
“At the start, when I started to fall in love with my wife, it also helped me to change my life a bit and disappear from social networks.
“That stuff about Instagram and Facebook, it seems it started a long time ago.
“But when I was single that didn’t exist and now I thank God for that!”
While Amorim is preparing for his huge test in English football, he still regrets not having a better education.
And the Old Trafford supremo 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.
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“I could also have entered a top college.
“My wife is an electrotechnical engineer and she throws that in my face every day.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
