Ruben Amorim has officially been appointed as the sixth Manchester United boss since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson – and he has wasted no time in reshuffling the backroom team.
While interim manager Ruud van Nistelrooy, who was acting as an assistant under Erik ten Hag, is keen to stick around, Amorim wants his own men in tow as he embarks on a new chapter in England.
‘I think all coaches need (a good backroom staff),’ Amorim said on Thursday.
‘I don’t want to go into too much detail. That was one of the reasons I always wanted to stay here – it was the people I work with.’
Mail Sport takes a closer look at the men following Amorim from Lisbon to Manchester…
Ruben Amorim (middle) is bringing five members of his coaching staff to Manchester United
Carlos Fernandes (Assistant)
The Robin to Amorim’s Batman.
Fernandes has been an ever-present alongside Amorim since the incoming Manchester United boss began his career in coaching.
Fernandes is part of a new wave of coaching who never played professionally and has been involved in coaching from as early as his teenage years.
The 29-year-old has been Amorim’s trusted lieutenant since he was 23 at Casa Pia, where he was initially not receiving a salary.
Fernandes is consistently praised by Amorim – who believes his sidekick could go on to be an even better coach than he is.
‘My No 2 is Carlos Fernandes, he’s been my right-hand man right from day one. He’ll be a much better coach than me,’ Amorim once said.
‘I often say if I become Bobby Robson, then he’ll be my Jose Mourinho!’
Carlos Fernandes (right) is Amorim’s trusted side-kick who has been likened to Jose Mourinho
Even before Amorim took his first steps into management at Casa Pia, there were stories of Fernandes and Amorim sat together in coffee shops scribbling down tactical philosophies on scraps of paper.
Amorim trusts the opinions of his assistants and Fernandes has been a key figure in the rebuild of Sporting from a dysfunctional team to the powerhouse group in Portuguese football.
‘Ruben chose [his coaches] based on who we are, he works with us with great joy, he lets us have our opinion,’ Fernandes said earlier this year.
‘It is very rare for someone to give as much credit to a coaching team as Ruben does and for that I can only thank him.’
Adelio Candido (Assistant)
A coach even younger than Fernandes – and at 28, younger than many of United’s players – is Adelio Candido.
Another of Amorim’s assistants, he is seen in Lisbon as a key piece of the puzzle when quantifying Sporting’s recent success.
He appeared on Amorim’s radar at Casa Pia, where he was already working as a youth coach.
Candido, who was born in Luanda, Angola, has a sports degree which specialised in football coaching.
Again, like Fernandes, he did not have a rich history as a professional player and has instead grafted his way up the coaching ladder.
Adelio Candido (far right) is the youngest coach in Amorim’s team – but is very important
He attended Lisbon institution, Lusófona University, in 2014, and that has been pinpointed as the time in which he began his path into coaching.
Candido has typically been the assistant tasked with watching games away from the dugout, instead analysing play from one of the executive boxes where he can offer a different perspective.
He has an intercom down to the bench and funnels messages back and forth before presenting findings to the team in the dressing room at half-time.
Sources have indicated he is seen as the ‘playful’ coach and has typically been the closest ally for players given his tender age and the need for a coaching staff to hold different personality profiles.
Along with Fernandes and fellow assistant Emanuel Ferro, Candido is tasked with a lot of set-piece work, something Amorim rarely gets involved with.
Speaking to the Pro Desporto podcast, he said: ‘Rúben leaves that more to us. His concern is that if there is no transition, that’s fine. It’s more about that and then defending well.’
Asked what his relationship is like working with Amorim, he explained: ‘It’s very easy to work with Rúben. It’s really easy.
‘It must be hard to find a coach who’s so easy to work with. Because he’s a great friend and a very close person. We’ve been very close since we met. Things ended up developing very quickly and we already know each other well.
‘He’s different, because in human terms, coaches try to be tougher, and Rúben isn’t like that. He’s a good person, he gets along with us, our day-to-day life is very happy, the dynamics are very good and we do our work the same way. We live as a family and spend most of our days ‘joking around’. If someone filmed that office, no one would believe it.’
The young coach has been described as ‘fun’ and the one that players become closest with
Emanuel Ferro (Assistant)
Forty-five-year-old Ferro brings with him a wealth of experience and was a figure that Amorim had to lean on earlier in his career when he lacked the knowledge he now possesses.
He holds a degree from the Technical University of Lisbon in sports science and went one step further to do a master’s degree in High Performance Training in 2005.
Ferro took the first steps into his coaching career in 2001 when he signed up to a UEFA coaching course with the Portuguese Football Federation.
Two spells coaching in the youth ranks of Benfica – broken up by a stint with Palmelense FC – allowed him to build his up knowledge base, before moving to Sporting’s academy in 2010 for 12 months.
He took three years away from football before being convinced to come back, initially working in Malaysia as assistant coach to Ricardo Formosinho at FC Kuala Lumpur in 2014-15.
He saw the last three months of that season out as the youth development coordinator at Espérance Sportive de Tunis, a club in Tunisia.
Emanuel Ferro (left, pictured in 2020) has been a trusted member of Amorim’s team for years
Ferro returned to Portugal and specifically to Sporting in 2015-16 to take on the role of assistant coach of the C youth team, which he did for two years.
In 2017-18 he was promoted to assistant coach of the B team, before becoming assistant coach of the U23s for the next campaign.
Promoted to the first team under Jorge Silas, he was given a lot of responsibility because Silas then didn’t have the necessary qualifications to undertake all his duties as manager, and the same was true of when Amorim arrived, which is why he soon became a key ally for the new Manchester United boss.
He has previously worked with Bruno Fernandes and Manuel Ugarte and that should help his standing in the dressing room.
Jorge Vital (Goalkeeper coach)
The elder statesman of the coaching team is 63-year-old goalkeeping coach Jorge Vital.
Unlike the other coaches heading to Manchester with Amorim, Vital had a prestigious playing career in the 1980s and 90s.
He played for Sporting and Gil Vicente and is incredibly well respected in Portugal.
He came across Amorim’s radar at Braga, where they worked together, and he was soon recruited to follow the up-and-coming coach to Sporting.
Vital has been credited with improving the footwork of goalkeepers he has worked with and he is expected to replace current goalkeeper coach Jelle ten Rouwelaar, who only joined Manchester United in July as part of a reshuffle by Ten Hag for this season.
Paulo Barreira (Sports scientist)
Paulo Barreira previously worked for Man United’s fiercest rivals, Liverpool FC
Meet the former Liverpool and Arsenal coach that is now ready to help try and turn Manchester United around.
Barreira, who finished his PhD at Liverpool John Moores University, is a highly-respected figure in sports medicine.
Born in Guimarães, Barreira is viewed as an expert in rehabilitation, prevention and physical conditioning.
His background is in volleyball and it was not until he went to Moreirense FC in 2004 that he started to learn more about football.
He headed for Liverpool in 2011 and stayed there until 2014, before eventually winding up at Sporting in 2020, after a pre-Covid stint with Arsenal.
Former Liverpool midfielder Lucas Leiva described Barreira as a ‘great friend and one of the best physio’s I have worked with.’
And what about Ruud van Nistelrooy?
There is still some debate whether Van Nistelrooy will stay at Old Trafford under the stewardship of Amorim.
Van Nistelrooy, who scored 150 goals in 219 games for United between 2001 and 2006, rejoined the club as assistant manager last summer and will continue as interim boss until Amorim starts work on November 11.
He rejected managerial roles – including at Championship side Burnley – to become a No 2 under Ten Hag but his future now remains up in the air.
He is guaranteed to be in the dugout for the next three games after Wednesday’s win against Leicester City in the Carabao Cup but is under a cloud when it comes to where his long-term futures lays.
The Dutchman was adamant he would be staying around during Thursday’s media conference but Amorim may have other ideas.