Ruben Amorim will teach Pep Guardiola how to be humble – but he won’t do it by burning cash like City and United have
MANCHESTER United boss Ruben Armorim is ready to give Pep Guardiola more lessons in how to be more humble.
Amorim’s Sporting Lisbon humiliated Guardiola’s Manchester City 4-1 in the Champions League before the Portuguese took over at Old Trafford last month.
And as the new United manager prepares for his first Manchester derby, a former close confidant reckons he will bring his City counterpart down a peg or two in the short and long term.
Goncalo Ferreira was communications chief at Braga when Amorim took his first job as a top-flight manager in 2019.
Ferreira believes Amorim will revive United without spending the kind of money they have wasted in recent years, and without the resources that Guardiola has enjoyed at the Etihad and in his previous jobs at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
Ferreira said: “I think Ruben will give Guardiola some lessons in humbleness.
“Ruben isn’t a ‘rich’ coach, in terms of mentality. He respects everybody.
“He doesn’t think he is the best coach in the world. He doesn’t need that focus. He only needs the space and the time to work, and hopefully then the results will arrive.
“He will prove that with maybe cheaper players than United is used to, you can win.
“Let’s make a team. United had great teams in the past.
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“United started to think that to build success they should do the same as City, burn money.
“It’s not about burning money.”
Ferreira is now boss of agency Global Take Over but before taking the job at Braga he was a journalist and came into contact with Guardiola.
He recalled: “I interviewed Guardiola and I know what I felt.
“I thought he was talking to me but thinking about other things he had to do afterwards. Not humble.
“You won at Barcelona. People can say it’s easy if you have Messi. You won at City – you had Sergio Aguero, David Silva.
“Let’s win at Roma, they have some money but don’t win a lot. Let’s win at Dortmund, for example, not in Bayern. It’s difficult.”
Ferreira feels Guardiola and City were guilty of underestimating Amorim and Sporting when they travelled to Lisbon at the start of last month.
The City boss was having to manage an injury-hit squad in which senior players like Kevin de Bruyne and Kyle Walker were feeling their way back to match sharpness.
Guardiola also gave centre back Jahmai Simpson-Pusey his first start, the day after his 19th birthday.
And although the young defender acquitted himself well, Ferreira felt Guardiola’s overall team selection was flawed.
Ferreira said: “Even with the players that he chose, from what he had, he didn’t take Sporting too seriously.
“No-one in Portugal ever did that because everybody knew that Sporting had the best coach and if they were in their normal way, they would win because they had the best players.
“But although Sporting is a good team, it isn’t Real Madrid or Barcelona or Bayern or one of the big teams of the world. Yet they beat City 4-1.
“Guardiola learned a lesson. Because he won everything and is rich, he is lacking a little bit of humbleness.”
Amorim has had an up and down start at United, while City are enduring the worst run of Guardiola’s reign and his entire managerial career – which included that defeat in Lisbon
If Guardiola isn’t careful, the new man at Old Trafford may kick him when he’s down again.