By admin 
Ruben Amorim has brought on board a group of well-known faces to complete his coaching staff at Manchester United.
The Portuguese manager has enjoyed huge success back home with Sporting and five coaches are following him to Old Trafford hoping to continue their good work, as confirmed by the club on Saturday.
Carlos Fernandes will be Amorim’s right-hand man, just like in Lisbon. Jorge Vital will manage the goalkeepers, Adelio Candido and Emanuel Ferro will help coach the first team, and then there’s the fifth appointment – Paulo Barreira – who has a somewhat troubled history given his new surroundings.
Barreira’s official job title is ‘Physical performance coach’, and United welcomed him and the four other new coaches via a statement on their official website. But he once earned his living with the Red Devils’ bitter rivals.
Before working in Saudi Arabia and the UAE and joining Amorim at Sporting, Barreira spent three years as Liverpool‘s physio of the first team. His recent move to United means he has crossed the gap between one of, if not the biggest, rivalries in English football.
His spell at Anfield began in 2011 and continued until 2014, during which time he began in-depth study of sports science at Liverpool John Moores University, where he completed his dissertation on the prevention of hamstring injuries in 2017.
Dr. Mark Robinson, who worked with Barreira at the university, remembered: “Paulo was a physio Liverpool FC and worked with us at LJMU to rehabilitate some of their high-profile players, including Lucas Leiva, who had a long-term injury at the time.
“We mainly did isokinetic assessments for them, which is essentially an assessment of muscle strength. He was always a very hard worker and determined to get promoted despite having a very busy job at Anfield.
“He also embraced new approaches to both athlete monitoring and rehabilitation. Paulo continues to produce high quality research. One of his dissertations on load monitoring in football has an impressive 118 citations.”
As if Barreira’s spell on Merseyside didn’t make his move to United intriguing enough, he also spent a significant amount of time with another of the club’s major rivals: Arsenal. He was the Gunners’ first-team physiotherapist between 2017 and 2020 and now returns to the club. Premier League after a successful stint in Portugal with the aim of getting one over his former employers.