Ruben Amorim: Sporting Lisbon boss making huge impact and drawing comparisons to Jose Mourinho

Sporting Lisbon fans jokingly refer to it as «the best moment of the week».

That is not when their team take to the pitch, but instead when manager Ruben Amorim speaks. Given how successful the Portuguese giants have been lately, it just highlights how much Amorim is revered by the green half of Lisbon. The club's supporters have even started a social media accountexternal-link where they count down the days to his news conferences.

The 37-year-old former international, merely a week older than Cristiano Ronaldo — his team-mate at the 2010 and 2014 World Cups — has revolutionised the art of managerial communication and brought a breath of fresh air to a country whose football discussions are mostly dominated by rivalry nonsense.

A natural-born leader, he has transformed a club that had been constantly at war with itself for over a decade, having reached its lowest point in May 2018 when masked ultras broke into the training ground to attack players and staff members with sticks and belts.

In what was deemed a miracle, Amorim managed to end a 19-year league title drought last season after bookmakers had given them only a 3% chance of winning it, behind Benfica, Porto and Braga.

Sporting have now reached the Champions League last 16 for the second time in their history, but do not expect him to brag about that before Tuesday's game against Manchester City at the Alvalade stadium.

Despite being touted as arguably the best Portuguese coach to have emerged since Jose Mourinho in the early 2000s, this is a man who does not get carried away easily.

Whenever he is on the microphone, he still comes across as someone who does not take himself very seriously and speaks his mind freely.

«The perfect word to describe him is 'genuine',» his