Jos\u00e9 Mourinho has emerged as the frontrunner to take charge at Benfica after a turbulent week at the club. Bruno Lage was dismissed following Benfica\u2019s Champions League defeat to Qarabag, a 3\u20132 home loss in which the club surrendered a two-goal lead. The result intensified pressure on the club hierarchy and prompted swift change.<\/p>\n
Costa\u2019s stock has only been dented further by Tuesday\u2019s calamitous Champions League defeat to Qarabag, which saw the Portuguese giants conspire to lose 3\u20132 at home after taking a two-goal lead. Benfica manager Bruno Lage was promptly sacked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe this is the time for a change, precisely to avoid compromising the season,\u201d Costa declared after Lage\u2019s dismissal. \u201cAnd, consequently, the coach who comes in must be a winning coach. A coach representing a club of this size must be one with the ability to bring this team to the levels we demand and give us the titles we desire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noronha Lopes\u2019s proposed vice president, Nuno Gomes, recently put forward Amorim as a potential candidate to lead Benfica. The former Sporting CP manager has a strong connection with the other Lisbon giant after spending nine years on their books as a player and could soon be available given Manchester United\u2019s wretched start to the new season.<\/p>\n
Despite those links to Ruben Amorim, the narrative has swung towards Mourinho. Fabrizio Romano was among the first of many outlets to claim that the self-anointed \u2018Special One\u2019 is in \u201cadvanced talks\u201d with Benfica over a swift return to management. The report follows Mourinho\u2019s recent dismissal by Fenerbah\u00e7e less than three weeks ago, a parting that came after a Champions League qualifier defeat to Benfica.<\/p>\n
There is an added layer of symmetry to the story. Mourinho\u2019s managerial journey began at the Est\u00e1dio da Luz almost exactly 25 years ago. The formerly progressive tactician lasted less than three months, resigning after being refused a new contract. From there, Mourinho began again at Uni\u00e3o de Leiria before going on to establish his reputation at Porto, Inter, Real Madrid and Manchester United.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mourinho is in advanced talks to replace Bruno Lage at Benfica amid links to Ruben Amorim. Details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1027,179],"tags":[1021,1036],"class_list":["post-2863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-benfica","category-manchester-united","tag-amorim","tag-jose-mourinho-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}