It’s all going wrong very quickly at Sporting CP following Ruben Amorim’s departure.
After Amorim left for Manchester United, the Lisbon giants won their first game under his replacement, Joao Pereira, 6-0 against Amarante in the Taca de Portugal.
Since then, though, it’s been three straight defeats – a 5-1 hammering by Arsenal in the Champions League and two straight losses against very beatable opposition in the Primeira Liga.
With their latest against Moreirense on Thursday, Sporting‘s league lead could be extinct with Porto and Benfica ready to leapfrog them.
Such a disaster has prompted chaos at board level, and it appears that President Frederico Varandas has the walls closing in on him as the only person left supporting Pereira.
A Bola claim that Varandas is under increasing pressure to cut his losses and call time on Pereira early and he’s increasingly isolated at board level as the only man backing the new coach.
Summing up the mood at the club, former coach Manuel José said: “An opportunity arose for João Pereira, who has practically no experience as a coach, other than with the youth teams and Sporting’s B team, to make an unimaginable leap and become the coach of the first team. An opportunity that he had no moral authority to reject, basically he had to accept it.
“It is an act of courage on the part of the president. It is reminiscent of what he did with Amorim, when he brought him from SC Braga and he had only coached Casa Pia. He paid €10 million to bring in a coach who had no experience in the league at all.”
However, after justifying the selection, Manuel José went on to explain why it’s all gone wrong.
“This is a nightmare for João,” he said. “After winning the Portuguese Cup, the game against Santa Clara didn’t go well and let’s just say that he doesn’t even have the comfort, as a coach, to face a press conference, especially at a club as big as Sporting, which is in first place, unbeaten, playing top-quality football, and practically only needs one point in the Champions League to qualify.
“It’s a huge burden for someone who was comfortable in the B team and now finds himself facing a giant on his shoulders.
“Now it’s not easy to turn the tables, as they say. To change our tune and fire the coach. He’s the coach of the president of Sporting, who is a mentally strong man and doesn’t seem to be affected.
“But the decision to keep the coach after negative results, when it seemed like the championship was already won, won’t be easy to turn around this situation.
“Firing him is to acknowledge the mistake he made, but it’s better to acknowledge the mistake than to lose the season.”
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