Ruben Amorim remains out of work having been sacked by Manchester United and he's back in Portugal and has been playing padel with new Manchester City chief Hugo Viana
Ruben Amorim and Hugo Viana have been snapped playing padel together in Portugal
Ruben Amorim and Hugo Viana have been snapped playing padel together in Portugal(Image: Padel Expo)
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Former Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim has been snapped playing padel back in his homeland with new Manchester City chief Hugo Viana.
The former team-mates linked up for a game at Lisbon’s Padel Expo club and posed for a photo in the gleaming sun. Club regular Goncalo Oliveira also played with the pair as Amorim sits back and waits for his next opportunity.
United bosses sacked him in January, with a 1-1 draw at Leeds proving to be the final straw. Amorim had struggled to have the impact the club had hoped for and was resolute in sticking to his principles. He also made blunt comments about the role he wished he had in Manchester.
Amorim received a mammoth £12million pay off and hasn't jumped back into the world of management as of yet. His stock remains high in some quarters given his success at Sporting Lisbon, which ultimately earned him the job at Old Trafford.
The Padel Expo club’s Instagram page shared the snap alongside the caption: “We tried to contact you to strengthen our coaching staff, but it wasn’t to be this time! Thank you very much for your visit Ruben Amorim and Hugo Viana, it was a pleasure to have you at Padel Expo.”
Amorim and Viana know each other from their stint as team-mates at Braga and have remained close friends, even while working on opposite sides of the Manchester divide. The pair’s wives Maria Joao Diogo and Raquel Gomes also share a tight bond, going into business together.
Viana previously worked in tandem with Amorim at Sporting with the former's work catching the attention of City, who hired him to replace Txiki Begiristain as their next director of football. He has big shoes to fill given the success the club have enjoyed with Begiristain at the helm.
Ruben Amorim's final game came at Elland Road in January
Ruben Amorim's final game came at Elland Road in January(Image: Ash Donelon, Manchester United via Getty Images)
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Amorim, despite only winning 38 percent of his games in Manchester, remains highly thought of by some of the senior players. Harry Maguire backed his methods, even if they didn't work out, and credited him with assembling their current squad.
"I don't really have much bad to say about Ruben," he said recently. "I really like Ruben, I think he's got great ideas. The ideas just didn't work at Manchester United. I do believe he'll go on and have an amazing career and his next club he'll probably go and win many, many football matches.
"It just didn't click or work and I think us as players have got to take a lot of responsibility for that as well. But I think he has led the club in a direction - and I do think he deserves a lot of credit for that - where he's built a good, solid squad."
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