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Amorim after his eye-catching claim about Man United: 'I won’t promise I won’t do it again'

Sport

Amorim after his eye-catching claim about Man United: 'I won’t promise I won’t do it again'
Sport

Sport

Amorim after his eye-catching claim about Man United: 'I won’t promise I won’t do it again'

2025-01-22 23:41 Last Updated At:23:50

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Ruben Amorim has acknowledged he might have made a mistake when he went public in describing his team as “the worst, maybe, in the history of Manchester United.”

Just don’t expect him to hold back his opinions going forward.

“If you want, I can be delusional and say different things,” Amorim said Wednesday at his first news conference since his remark that captured headlines and widespread attention.

“I say it as I saw it. I said it to the players and I said to you,” he told reporters. “I think it’s a good thing to be honest. If you want me to say different things — you saw one thing, I saw one thing — I can start to do that. It’s easier for me. But what I’m seeing, they know. If you are in the stadium, you can understand. Let’s face it and work on it.”

Amorim’s eye-catching comment about United's current plight came after a 3-1 home loss to Brighton in the Premier League on Sunday.

It was a fourth loss in United’s last five home games in the league, and a seventh defeat in 15 games in all competitions since Amorim took charge in November as the replacement for Erik ten Hag.

United, the record 20-time English champion, is 13th in the 20-team Premier League and closer to the relegation zone than the European qualification spots after 22 of 38 games.

Amorim denied that he was shifting blame toward his players. The 39-year-old Portuguese coach said: “I am (most) responsible for the performances and the results.

“I am a young guy and sometimes I make a mistake. This time I needed to talk. Maybe it was a mistake and I get more nervous and go to the (media) conference really nervous, and then you say things you shouldn’t say … I won’t promise I won’t do it again but I will try to improve.”

Amorim was speaking ahead of United’s Europa League game against Scottish rival Rangers at Old Trafford on Thursday. He said his players were “more nervous” and “anxious” playing at home and that was making it harder for the team to pick up results.

“If you have a little inexperience when you fall into this type of context, it’s hard to go up — especially when you are in a massive club,” Amorim said.

“That was my only point in saying it after that loss. The way I do it? Maybe not but it is what it is. I am like that all the time.”

United is in seventh place in the 36-team standings of the revamped Europa League after three wins and three draws from its first six games. Each team has eight matches and the top eight finishers qualify for the last 16, without the need to go through a two-legged playoff.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim gestures during a training session in Manchester, England, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, ahead of the Europa League soccer match between Manchester United and Rangers FC. (Martin Rickett/PA via AP)

Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim gestures during a training session in Manchester, England, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, ahead of the Europa League soccer match between Manchester United and Rangers FC. (Martin Rickett/PA via AP)

Manchester United's head coach Ruben Amorim follows the game during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester United and Brighton and Hove Albion, at the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, England, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

Manchester United's head coach Ruben Amorim follows the game during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester United and Brighton and Hove Albion, at the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, England, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

Manchester United's head coach Ruben Amorim follows the game during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester United and Brighton and Hove Albion, at the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, England, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

Manchester United's head coach Ruben Amorim follows the game during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester United and Brighton and Hove Albion, at the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, England, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)

Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim gestures during a press conference in Manchester, England, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, ahead of the Europa League soccer match between Manchester United and Rangers FC. (Martin Rickett/PA via AP)

Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim gestures during a press conference in Manchester, England, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, ahead of the Europa League soccer match between Manchester United and Rangers FC. (Martin Rickett/PA via AP)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Clark Hunt was not quite 5 years old when he settled into his seat in Tulane Stadium beside his parents to watch the Kansas City Chiefs, the franchise his father had founded in the brazen days of the AFL, as they played the Minnesota Vikings in Super IV.

Hunt doesn't remember the game itself. But once in a while, photos will surface that he has never seen before.

“I do have a photo of me sitting with my parents in the stands, right? I think they were benches. It sort of looked like a corner,” said Hunt, now 59, who assumed control of the Chiefs when his father, the visionary Lamar Hunt, died in December 2006.

“I guess that shows you how things have changed,” Hunt said.

Indeed, it's a safe bet that Hunt and the rest of his family had comfortable seats in a luxury suite when the Chiefs faced the Eagles on Sunday at the Superdome. Led by Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, and with a celebrity fan base that includes Taylor Swift and Caitlin Clark, the Chiefs were chasing an unprecedented third consecutive Lombardi Trophy.

The fact was not lost on Hunt that they were trying to make history in the same city where they won their first Super Bowl with a 23-7 victory over the Vikings on Jan. 11, 1970. In fact, Hunt seemed to view the coincidence as something closer to kismet, a point that he underscored by pointing out that the Chiefs spent this week practicing at Tulane University.

“I hate to say I don't have any memories from that Super Bowl,” he said, "but getting to go to Tulane where we're training and being literally a stone's throw from the old stadium where we won Super Bowl IV is really special.

“I always think about my parents Super Bowl week,” Hunt added, “There's no way not to. But this one is going to be special.”

There's an argument to be made that nobody had a greater influence on the big game than Lamar Hunt.

The oil magnate was part of the “Foolish Club” that founded the AFL, back when they were being kept out of the NFL, and he was instrumental in the merger years later that ultimately brought the two professional football leagues together.

In a letter to NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, Hunt mused about the pending title game, saying: “I have kiddingly called it the ‘Super Bowl,’ which obviously can be approved upon.” He was inspired by the must-have Christmas gift of the year that his wife, Norma, had gotten Clark Hunt and the rest of the kids: the Super Ball, made by toy company Wham-O.

Lamar Hunt regularly attended the Super Bowl, though he never saw his Chiefs play in it again. They wouldn't make it back until Andy Reid arrived in town, and Mahomes and Kelce helped Kansas City beat the 49ers in February 2020 — five full decades after they triumphed over the “Purple People Eaters” and the rest of the Vikings at Tulane Stadium.

Norma Hunt continued to attend the Super Bowl until her death in June 2023. At the time, she was one of four people — and the only woman — who had attended every game, beginning with the Chiefs' loss to the Packers on Jan. 15, 1967.

The Chiefs were back Sunday for the fifth time in six years. And they were chasing a threepeat against the Eagles, the team Kansas City beat a couple of years ago in Glendale, Arizona, to win the first of its back-to-back championships.

“I would say every Chiefs fan is spoiled, and that includes me, right? Because it has been such a special five or six years," Hunt told a small group of local reporters this week. “And I think we know we're spoiled because of the journey that it took to get to this point, and the five decades we went without getting back to the Super Bowl.”

This was the 11th time that New Orleans played host to the big game, tying Miami for the most of any city. The French Quarter had been packed all week with fans wearing Chiefs red and Eagles green, creating a kaleidoscope of Christmas colors stretching from Jackson Square to Canal Street, and bubbling all the way up to the Superdome.

The home of the Saints, and the de facto replacement for Tulane Stadium, was hosting the game for the eighth time.

“I don't think any of us really could have dreamed it being like this, and having the success we've had,” Clark Hunt said. “My dad would have loved it because in his heart, he was a fan — him and my mom were fans, first and foremost. And he would love it for our fans, because that was always a focus of his.”

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

FILE - San Francisco 49ers cheerleaders perform during a power outage at the Superdome in the second half of the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game between the 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens, in New Orleans, Feb. 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - San Francisco 49ers cheerleaders perform during a power outage at the Superdome in the second half of the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game between the 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens, in New Orleans, Feb. 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - New Orleans Saints fans listen to the Goo Goo Dolls in front of the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Sept. 25, 2006, upon reopening for the New Orleans Saints' first game in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck more than a year earlier. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

FILE - New Orleans Saints fans listen to the Goo Goo Dolls in front of the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Sept. 25, 2006, upon reopening for the New Orleans Saints' first game in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck more than a year earlier. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt holds the Lamar Hunt Trophy after the Chiefs defeated the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship NFL football game, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt holds the Lamar Hunt Trophy after the Chiefs defeated the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship NFL football game, Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, wife Tavia Shackles Hunt, center, and daughter Gracie Hunt pose on the red carpet at the NFL Honors award show ahead of the Super Bowl 59 football game, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, wife Tavia Shackles Hunt, center, and daughter Gracie Hunt pose on the red carpet at the NFL Honors award show ahead of the Super Bowl 59 football game, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

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