Who is the Manchester United goalkeeping coach Jorge Vital, who Ruben Amorim would prefer to start over Marcus Rashford?

Ruben Amorim followed up his Manchester United side's 1-0 win at Fulham in the Premier League on Sunday with another controversial statement in his press conference. Asked about the failure to include Marcus Rashford in his squad of late, the Portuguese manager stated he would prefer to select 63-year-old goalkeeping coach Jorge Vital over any player who did not meet his standards.

Ruben Amorim said he would rather start his goalkeeping coach than uncommitted players when asked about Marcus Rashford. But who is Jorge Vital, the coach in question?

The Manchester United manager was speaking after his side’s 1-0 win at Fulham in the Premier League, which lifted his team into 12th spot in the table.

With a few days left in the January transfer window, Rashford is yet to find a new club after saying he was interested in a fresh start after spending his whole career so far with his boyhood club.

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He has not featured for the club since a Europa League fixture at Viktoria Plzen midway through December last year.

United’s form under Amorim has been little better than under previous manager Erik ten Hag, and there have been suggestions that Rashford could be brought back into the first team, particularly if Rashford does not leave in the current window.

After the Fulham match, Amorim was asked about Rashford's absence and said: "It’s the same situation for every player. If you do the maximum, if you do the right things, we can use every player.

"And you can see it today on the bench – we miss a little bit of pace to go to change the game, to move some pieces, but I prefer [it] like that.

"I will put Vital before I put a player that doesn't give the maximum every day, so I will not change in that."

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Video credit: TNT Sports

So who is Jorge Vital?

While Amorim doubtless cited Vital as an example of his reluctance to include unmotivated players, we took a look at just who the goalkeeping coach is.

As a player, he started his keeping career at Uniao de Tomar before a peripatetic career, the highlight of which was a four-year spell at Sporting between 1986 and 1990, and retired in 2001.

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Vital then started his time as goalkeeper coach at Braga in the same year, staying at the club for a decade.

He then moved to Sporting but returned to Braga after less than a year. He then moved back to Sporting between 2020 and 2024, before following his manager Amorim to Old Trafford.

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