IF Manchester United players cross Ruben Amorim, they risk the same fate as Gaius Makouta.

Who’s Gaius Makouta? Exactly...

To be fair to the Congolese midfielder, he has gone on to have a decent enough career with Boavista and now Alanyaspor in Turkey.

But only after Amorim gave him a short, sharp shock.

Makouta paid the penalty for rubbing Amorim up the wrong way when the new Manchester United boss started work as manager of Braga’s B team in September 2019.

Goncalo Ferreira was the communications chief at Braga who witnessed Amorim’s incredible rise.

But when Ferreira turned up to watch the new B team boss’ first game, he expressed concern to club president Antonio Salvador.

Ferreira said: “Makouta was one of the best players, but when I arrived at the stadium and saw the team warming up, Makouta wasn’t on the pitch.

“I said, ‘What happened?’, and the president said, ‘Let’s see’. Braga won 5-0.

“It turned out in the first training sessions, Makouta wasn’t satisfied as he wanted to be in the first team.

“So he wasn’t the best at training — he had quality but wasn’t giving  everything.

“I realised that players who aren’t 100 per cent with the team, in solidarity, won’t play for Ruben. He doesn’t care about their status.

“Makouta ended up going out on loan to a club in Bulgaria.”

Amorim won seven of his first eight games in charge of the Braga B team.

Which was enough to convince Salvador to part company with first-team head coach Ricardo Sa Pinto and install Amorim instead.

The first top-flight match of his managerial career was at Belenenses, where he had been a player and a team that was battling near the bottom of the table — like United’s opponents on Sunday, Ipswich.

Amorim immediately put his stamp on Braga by making six changes and switching to three at the back.

Ferreira said: “It took courage to put some of the players that he dropped on the bench.

“There was a big, immediate difference in the team’s energy. We felt like they wanted to kill the opposition.

“Braga won 7-1. That kind of result is not normal in the Portuguese league.

“He won’t put the players on the bench, he will put them in the stands. You will see from the first game the guys he feels aren’t humble or with the team.”

Ferreira believes Amorim’s selection for the Ipswich game will show whether he has found any Gaius Makouta’s in the United ranks.

“I’ve read some things about the training sessions at United and how many players weren’t giving their best. Maybe they didn’t like the former coach.

“Ruben was a player, so he can feel who is with the team and who is not.”

Those who find favour with Amorim can expect success.

After the rout of Belenenses, Braga beat Porto in the league and then the League Cup final.

The next big scalp was Sporting Lisbon before Braga won a league game at Benfica for the first time since 1954.

Amorim had been in charge of Braga for just 13 games when Sporting agreed to trigger his £8.4million release clause to make him their new boss.

Ferreira, now boss of agency Global Take Over, said: “I was very sad, like every Braga director, player, staff member and fan.

“It was the best six months of Braga in terms of energy and growth. There is a before and after Ruben in Braga.”

And, you suspect, a before and after Amorim in the career of Gaius Makouta.