The 39-year-old who was just handed soccer’s impossible job

When the call came last month with an offer to become manager of Manchester United, Ruben Amorim wasn’t given much time to think it over. This was a once in a lifetime offer, he was told, from one of the most celebrated clubs in sports. It was now or never.

For a 39-year-old former player from Lisbon, this was all a bit dizzying. Amorim had only ever held three permanent jobs as a head coach, and none had been outside of Portugal. But he knew United wouldn’t come calling twice. He had to accept.

“I had three days to make my mind up,” Amorim said, “to make a decision that changes radically my life.”

Amorim, who will officially become United’s sixth permanent manager since 2013 on Nov. 11, is now heading into one of the most high-profile posts in all of sports. The trouble is that turning around Manchester United, the Premier League’s staggering giant, may also be an impossible job.

Though the club has won more English league titles than any other, it’s currently stuck in one of a baffling rut. United’s legendary manager Alex Ferguson dominated the Premier League for two decades until 2013, when promptly retired. The team hasn’t come close to a title since. In that time, United has spent well over $1 billion on acquiring new playing talent, sold off a 25% stake in the club to British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, and collected more permanent managers than trophies.

It currently sits in 13th place in the standings after just three victories in 10 games. The latest frustration was a 1-1 draw at home against Chelsea on Sunday.

Yet nothing has proven more galling than the club’s fruitless search for a worthy successor to Ferguson. When he rode off into the sunset, with 13 league titles to his name, United went with his handpicked choice for successor in David Moyes, a fellow Scotsman whose straight-ahead tactics proved hopelessly ineffective for building a championship contender. It then tried serial winners such as José Mourinho, a club legend in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and most recently, Dutch tactician Erik Ten Hag.

Over their 10 full seasons in charge, United finished outside the top three more than half the time. In the 20 years before that, entirely under Ferguson, that happened on exactly zero occasions.

“Of course my dream was to bring more trophies to the cabinet,” Ten Hag wrote in an open letter to the fans. “Unfortunately, that dream has come to an end.”

Now, it’s Amorim’s turn to take his shot with a club whose expectations have never adjusted to this new reality. It built an empire through unparalleled sporting success fueled by one of the most sophisticated commercial operations in the game. To this day, United remains one of soccer’s top five revenue generators with more than $800 million a year, putting it in a class with only Real Madrid, Barcelona, and the state-owned pair of Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain.

On the pitch, however, United has fallen far behind those clubs due to some spectacular misses in the transfer market and failures in the dugout. Yet CEO Omar Berrada says explicitly that the aim is to win the Premier League in 2028 to coincide with the club’s 150th anniversary.

Whether Amorim can get them there will depend on how well his three-at-the-back tactical scheme adapts to English soccer. So far, it has served him well through a coaching career that is barely five years old. After a short stint at Braga, he took charge of Sporting Lisbon in early 2020 and soon led the club to its first league title in 19 years. Following it up with a second championship last season was enough to turn Amorim into a highly desirable target. He was soon linked with some of the top clubs in Europe—Liverpool, Barcelona, Bayern Munich—and also West Ham.

But it was United who shelled out 10 million Euros to pay Sporting’s release clause and secure the services of a man they viewed as a coaching prodigy. (That came on top of the nearly 20 million United paid Ten Hag and his staff on their way out the door.)

“There’s a time when I have to take a step forward in my career,” Amorim said. “That’s what happened. It was harder for me than for any Sporting fan, believe me, but I had to do this.”

This isn’t the first time Manchester United has made a major bet on bringing in a hotshot from Sporting Lisbon. Back in 2003, another Portuguese raid led to the signing of 17-year-old dribbling maestro named Cristiano Ronaldo. His arrival soon kicked off another spell of dominance for English soccer’s greatest dynasty.

But two decades later, the landscape of the league couldn’t be more different. United’s squad is a permanent work in progress. Its closest rivals are constantly re-arming. And English soccer’s unstoppable force is now United’s crosstown nemesis. So Amorim knows what he’s up against.

“After Sporting I wanted that one, Manchester,” he said. “And I want that context because that allows me to do things my way.”