RUBEN AMORIM is closing in on the Manchester United job.
The 39-year-old Portuguese manager is now planning his backroom staff – with three trusted coaches set to join him in swapping Sporting Lisbon for Old Trafford.
That includes his trusted assistant manager Carlos Fernandes, assistant coach Adelio Candido, and goalkeeper coach Jorge Vital.
So important are they that Manchester United are understood to be coughing up £4.1m in compensation so they can join Amorim in England.
Amorim has made no secret of his biggest mentor in the game – Jose Mourinho.
While wife Maria Joao Diogo is related to former PSG sporting director Antero Henrique, who famously brokered deals for Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.
SunSport looks at Amorim’s inner circle and closest confidantes.
Carlos Fernandes
Fernandes has been a constant by Amorim’s side, all the way throughout his management career.
The 29-year-old didn’t play pro, but began coaching when he was just a teenager.
He came through Benfica’s ranks, and was an assistant at the tender age of 18 when Amorim was playing for their first team.
When Amorim took on the Casa Pia job, Fernandes joined him.
Then, the pair went to Braga B, Braga, and Sporting Lisbon for the past four years.
“My number two is Carlos Fernandes, he’s been my right-hand man right from day one. He’ll be a much better coach than me,” Amorim said of Fernandes in the past.
“I often say if I become Bobby Robson, then he’ll be my Jose Mourinho! But there’s plenty of time, we’ve signed a 15-year deal!”
Adelio Candido
Incredibly, Candido is even younger than Fernandes.
The 28-year-old assistant coach is tipped to follow Amorim and Fernandes to Manchester.
Like Fernandes, he’s followed a similar career trajectory as a loyal stooge to Amorim.
Candido was already a youth coach with Casa Pia, when they all crossed paths.
A role with Braga soon followed, then he jumped to Sporting where he’s been for the past four years.
Again, he didn’t have a playing career at the top level.
Jorge Vital
Bringing the age up is 63-year-old Vital, a goalkeeping coach who did play pro.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the shotstopper starred for clubs including Sporting and Gil Vicente in a career that spanned two decades.
He is now passing on his expertise to a younger generation, with distribution a huge focus of his training.
Vital and Amorim met at Braga, and he was soon taken to Sporting.
His appointment could spell the end of current goalkeeper coach Jelle ten Rouwelaar, who only joined United in July.
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Jose Mourinho
The Special One is somewhat of a mentor for Amorim.
He had an internship at Mourinho’s High Performance Football Coaching course.
And he has previously cited the Fenerbahce manager as his “reference point” in coaching.
He has played down any comparisons between the pair, saying of his idol: “Mourinho is one of a kind. There won’t be another Mourinho. Mourinho is unique.”
Mourinho has already given his backing publicly to United’s potential appointment in the past.
When Amorim was linked with the West Ham job back in May, Mourinho revealed: “It’s also a question I shouldn’t answer, but what can I tell you? I like him [Amorim] as a person, I like him as a coach.
“I think he has the conditions to be able to coach in any league and he has the conditions to be able to coach in any club.
“But he’s in a good league and he’s in a big club.
“The decision is his and it will be up to the clubs that want him or not, to convince him with more or less arguments.
“What is clear from my side is that I like the person and I like the coach.”
Maria Joao Diogo
Amorim is married to Maria, and the pair share one son together.
Maria has built her own business in interior design with an academic degree in telecommunications engineering.
The couple got married in 2013 in front of 160 guests at a beautiful ceremony at the Palácio de S. Marcos church in Coimbra.
Players like Nuno Gomes, Miguel Vítor, Hugo Viana, Luís Filipe and Quim were all present. As was Maria’s brother, Antero Henrique.
Antero was famously the former Sporting Director at PSG – and was a Man Utd target – before the Red Devils switched their attention to Dan Ashworth.
He was responsible for the most expensive transfer ever – bringing Neymar to the Ligue 1 giants in a record-breaking £198million from Barcelona.
Antero also managed to convince Kylian Mbappe to snub Real Madrid, when he moved from Monaco.
While Dani Alves, who was fielding several offers from Premier League clubs, was persuaded that his future belonged in the French capital in 2017.
