Ruben Amorim to Liverpool? The 'anti-Mourinho' working wonders at Sporting CP that Bruno Fernandes doesn't want to leave Portugal!

Amorim first came to the attention of Europe's elite after ending Sporting's 19-year Primeira Liga title drought in 2021. It was an amazing achievement, given Benfica and Porto's dominance of the Portuguese top flight, and made all the more remarkable by the fact that the championship-winning coach was just 36 years of age at the time.

Sporting, it seemed, had found their very own Julian Nagelsmann, and club president Frederico Varandas couldn't have been more chuffed with himself, because many pundits and fans had questioned - and in many cases criticised - the decision to hire Amorim.

Firstly, there was the fact that he had spent the majority of his playing career, during which he was capped 14 times by Portugal, at Sporting's hated Lisbon rivals Benfica. Secondly, he was, as his age would suggest, incredibly inexperienced. He had only previously worked at third-tier Casa Pier, where he stood down after being suspended over lacking the required coaching credentials, and Braga, first with the club's reserves and then the senior squad.

Thirdly, and most significantly of all, Sporting had to hand over €10 million ($12m) to secure his services - which made him the third-most expensive coach in the world, after Andre Villas-Boas and Brendan Rodgers (Nagelsmann and Graham Potter have since moved to the top of that particular list, pushing Amorim down to fifth).

The fee incensed supporters, believing it to be the latest demonstration of Sporting's perceived wastefulness. Amorim, after all, had only been in charge of Braga's first team for 13 matches, following the December 2019 sacking of Ricardo Sa Pinto. He did win 10 of them, though, including a shocking League Cup final win over Porto, and Braga's first away win over Benfica in 65 years.

By that stage, Sporting had seen enough to convince them that Amorim was the man to put them back on top of Portuguese football - and they were right, with the midfielder-turned-coach proving money very well spent.

He didn't get off to a particularly promising start, with Sporting failing to win any of their final three games of the coronavirus-affected 2019-20 season to lose third place in the Primeira Liga table to Braga - of all teams. However, when Sporting beat Amorim's former club in January 2021, they were already romping towards the title.

It was all so surprising. Porto and Benfica had both spent big during the summer of 2020; by contrast, Sporting, because of their financial difficulties, had been forced to put their faith in youth academy products such as Nuno Mendes and Goncalo Inacio, as well as a smattering of shrewd signings including Pedro Goncalves (€6.5m/$8m) as well as Joao Mario and Pedro Porro, both of whom arrived on loan, from Inter and Manchester City, respectively.

An early and embarrassing 4-1 loss to Austrian outfit LASK in the play-off round of the Europa League did not bode well, but the work done by Amorim during his first pre-season at the Estadio Jose Alvalade began to bear fruit.

Sporting effectively counter-attacked their way to the title, relying on an outstanding defensive unit led by captain Sebastian Coates (formerly of Liverpool) and protected by the brilliant ball-winning midfielder Joao Palhinha to frustrate the life out of opponents, before hitting them on the break with quick vertical transitions that were often finished off by versatile attacker Goncalves, who hit 23 goals in 37 appearances in all competitions.

Wing-backs Mendes and Porro, who hit the winner in the League Cup final win over Braga, provided the width in Amorim's 3-4-3 formation, but also played pivotal roles in the backline that conceded just 20 goals.

Sporting's system worked so well, in fact, that they came desperately close to going the whole season undefeated, only losing for the first time in their penultimate game, against Benfica, four days after the title had been clinched.

The following season, Sporting pipped Borussia Dortmund to second spot in their Champions League group, and although they suffered a 5-1 aggregate loss to Manchester City in the last 16, Pep Guardiola was full of praise for Amorim ("one of the best coaches around at the moment") and his players (Matheus Nunes, in particular).

He further enhanced his reputation in England by taking four points off Tottenham in the group stages of the 2022-23 Champions League, before knocking out Arsenal out of the Europa League. All of those impressive European results were achieved while Sporting continually sold their most promising players, from Mendes to Nunes. In spite of the talent drain, though, Amorim's team has evolved. While they no longer concede fewer goals than Benfica and Porto, they score far more.

Coates and Inacio, who are both integral to the way in which Sporting build from the back, are serious threats in the opposition box, Goncalves is still a constant threat while Paulinho has proven a reliable source of goals since being prised away from Braga in 2021.

The key, though, was last summer's acquisition of Viktor Gyokeres, the former Coventry City striker who is now attracting attention from all across Europe with his record of 36 goals in 39 competitions. The Swede is obviously the focal point of the attack, but he regularly drifts wide and switches positions with wingers Marcus Edwards and Francisco Trincao in what is a very fluid forward line.

In that context, one imagines that Amorim would quite enjoy working with the likes of Darwin Nunez, Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo, Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota - and vice versa. Indeed, the word is that Liverpool's analysts are quite taken with Amorim and the job he has done in Lisbon.

He has proven himself tactically versatile, particularly against stronger sides, is well used to working on a smaller budget than his club's rivals, and is renowned for forming a strong bond with his players, whom he is fond of describing as "the best in the world".

Which is amusing, given he's such a humble, down-to-earth character who is loath to big himself up. Indeed, he quipped after the Champions League exit against City that while his team had the "talent and quality to play this level, maybe they just don't have the coach!"

Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. He is hugely respected by his peers, with Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta just one of many coaches to recognise "the incredible work" Amorim has done at Sporting over "the past few years".

Amorim openly admits that Jose Mourinho was a "reference" point for him in his formative years as a coach, but he gets embarrassed by the constant comparisons with his compatriot ("There will never be another Jose!") and, in fairness, it would be wrong to describe him as the second coming of 'The Special One'.

For starters, his style of play is far more attractive and attacking, while he's a completely different character, particularly when it comes to dealing with the press. In that sense, he's the anti-Mourinho. Indeed, those that have followed Amorim have nothing but nice things to say about him, and many of his former charges are in no doubt that he will coach one of Europe's elite sooner rather than later.

"He has an in-depth knowledge of the game and has a close relationship with the players," Fulham ace Palhinha told O Jogo. "The way he's developing, he won't be in Portugal much longer."

Certainly, with Sporting currently one point clear of Benfica at the top of the Primeira Liga with a game in hand, it feels inevitable that Amorim will end up in England if he wins a second title in Lisbon. Will his next destination be Liverpool? We obviously don’t know yet - but it’s telling that Manchester United captain and former Sporting star Bruno Fernandes is desperately hoping that Amorim stays put.

The club's formerly sceptical supporters feel exactly the same away. Just like Klopp at Anfield, Amorim has long since turned doubters into believers at the Jose Alvalade.