Shuffling up the steps from the Campo Grande metro station, there was an air of sadness that hung over everyone in green and white. For one elderly gentleman it soon became all too much.
‘It will indeed be a significant loss,’ he tells a local reporter before he bursts into tears. Strangers are offering out hugs.
Down by the bifana (a classic Portuguese sandwich) food trucks, arguments are breaking out about whether Amorim will face boos when he shows his face at the stadium. Earlier in the day at a supporters’ bar, Amorim memorabilia is being taken down and hidden away.
One bar manager even instructs her bar tender to mute the television so as not to hear the word ‘Manchester’ on the live broadcast any more.
Even without total confirmation of his departure come kick-off here, this League Cup match against Nacional was being treated as a day of mourning. It was too soon even for gallows humour when Mail Sport joked that the stress of Manchester United may well ruin Amorim’s thick head of hair.
Others were not so magnanimous in their words; furious with a man they were now labelling as a ‘traitor’.
‘Anyone who abandons a project halfway through is not a man, he is a rat,’ one fan fumed to a friend as scarves adorned with his face spill out of a box on a nearby stall.
‘I hope that the man who spent weeks and weeks making the speeches he did does not run away like a rat.’
There were no discounts to the Amorim scarves or flags. €7.50 take it or leave it we were told. There should be some fresh ones in print ready for Sir Matt Busby Way in no time.
This was a day where Amorim wanted to hide away, quickly realising that the joviality with which he started the day was not shared by others and he needed to abandon the happy-go-lucky show.
Mobbed in the early morning as he strolled along in a beige cardigan and an unkempt white shirt, he offered up a charming smile and would not be drawn on reports of his talks with Ineos supremo Sir Dave Brailsford. Across the city, the short-and-sweet interview was playing on a loop to a despairing public.
Sources here familiar with those talks detailed how Amorim was under no illusion that he wanted to be the next man to try and turn Manchester United around after they concluded.
He headed for the sanctuary of the training ground by 10.05am, protected from the camera flashes by the bus’ tinted windows. And when he appeared at the stadium to lukewarm applause it was his head bowed, not that of supporters, as he sheepishly shuffled out onto the pitch.
Pacing up and down his technical area like a child waiting to hear the punishment from their parents, he gave the impression of a man desperate for this charade of a match – which few seemed to care about with large swathes of empty seats – to end.
He paused often, taking sips from a nearby water bottle, but was not the animated character many here are accustomed to. With eyes burning a hole in the back of his head he took up a crouched squatting position.
By the time they opened the scoring early in the second half through Morten Hjulmund there was barely a flicker of emotion. Embarrassment perhaps the overriding one Amorim wanted to shrug off.
‘There are several factors that need to be analysed,’ commentator Mario Cagica told Mail Sport said passionately in the manager’s defence.
‘On one hand, you have to understand Ruben Amorim’s side of the story. He has done a brilliant job at Sporting, perhaps the best coach in the club’s last 70 years, and here he has a once-in-a-opportunity to take over a major European team in a context identical to the one he found at Sporting: a team that is lost and needs direction.
‘It’s a good opportunity, a good challenge for Amorim and it’s understandable that the coach has accepted the project at this stage because he could run the risk of the opportunity not appearing so soon again if things went wrong at Sporting.’
For fans words and defences of Amorim ring hollow. It was Monday when Amorim spoke of his pride at coaching Sporting. A determination to guide Sporting – who have won nine games from nine, scoring 30 and conceding only two – to a third league title under his watch. Less than 24 hours his bags were packed and he was ready to head for England. To many it stings.
Andre is a lifelong Sporting fan that heads to this match with his Benfica-supporting friend Ruben. The jokes are endless coming from one direction.
‘At work I felt like crying,’ Andre told Mail Sport. ‘It feels wrong that he leaves now. I don’t care about this game, I don’t. I want Amorim to stay, we need him to stay.’
Fred, a season-ticket holder for more than 10 years, first jokes he won’t speak because everything about England has ruined his mood.
‘I am incredibly sad. The way he built this team, created this team, we just have to be happy he got to have a part in this story.’
There is an irony in the fact that going back to 2021, when Manchester United found themselves searching for a manager after the sacking of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the question was put to Amorim if he was the right man for the job.
‘United? We are talking about rumours, my future is clear,’ he said that day.
‘I don’t know how many names were talked about, I don’t give much importance. If you allow me the opinion, United should take Ten Hag later this week. It was something that would make me very happy.’
Amorim was being cheeky then with Sporting about to face Ten Hag’s Ajax.
Now it is ironic that almost three years on from that fateful response, it is Amorim United are turning to to clean up his recommendation’s mess. Funny how that works out.
