June 12, 2018. Spain is preparing to launch its 2018 World Cup with the status of a serious candidate for the title, the Iberian qualification campaign having been particularly successful. Julen Lopetegui had thus managed to breathe new life into this Spanish team, which had somewhat regained its splendor. But during the afternoon, and to everyone’s surprise, Real Madrid published a press release announcing the appointment of the Basque as coach, to replace Zinedine Zidane. He was to take control of the club from the Spanish capital once the international competition is over.
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A huge surprise, since his name had never been announced by the Madrid media. One of the most controversial soap operas in the history of Spanish football followed. Very recovered, Luis Rubiales, president of the Spanish Federation, decided to dismiss the coach a few days before the start of the competition. An episode that made a lot of talk on the other side of the Pyrenees, where many believe that with Lopetegui instead of the interim Fernando Hierro appointed urgently, Spain could have done something interesting rather than going out in eighths. Some still resented him for accepting the Madrid position before the end of the World Cup, others attacked Florentino Pérez, accused of destabilizing the selection in favor of the interests of his club. Luis Rubiales has also suffered his share of criticism, since many observers felt that his (future) appointment as Real Madrid coach would have had no impact on La Roja and that he could have continued. to lead the South European selection.
A complete coach
But a few months after his appointment, he was already fired by Florentino Pérez. October 29, 2018 more precisely. All that for that, we summarized in Spain. Suffice to say that at that time, his rating was at its lowest … Until Monchi bet on him last summer. A winning bet, since the Andalusian team obtained a brilliant fourth place in the league, and this European title won Friday night against Inter. All this, with a team completely upset during the last summer transfer window, since among the eleven players who started the match yesterday, only Jesus Navas and Ever Banega were at the club last season! Enough to underline the good work of the Sevillian sports director, but also of the coach who quickly succeeded in uniting all his players around a tactical plan allowing him to get the best out of each one. A project that was announced the size of a skyscraper which finally ended in the rapid construction of a hut at the bottom of the garden. “The players are great, very tall, for all the work they have done, for everything they transmit, and they would have been just as great if we hadn’t won. This team never surrenders. We won a very important title, and that makes me very happy ”, he confided, moved, with tears in his eyes, after the match.
But above all, Lopetegui has managed to get rid of this image of a coach obsessed with tiki-taka and the positional game which tends to stick to the coaches who coached La Roja and the youth teams. The former goalkeeper has managed to create a modular system, just as effective when he wants to dominate the game through possession as when he wants to fall back a bit to bet on a game of quick transitions. In such a system, many players with very different characteristics have managed to do well, from magicians Banega or Suso to players perhaps less technically gifted like Luuk de Jong or Joan Jordan, passing by elements offensives who have taken another step forward like Munir El Haddadi or Lucas Ocampos. And what about this defensive sector with the Diego Carlos-Koundé duo in defense, supported by Fernando, who offers himself a second youth in front of the defense. The same goes for the inexhaustible Jesus Navas on the right side, or Sergio Reguilon, who has become a reference to this position of left side. An outstanding tactician but also a leader of talented men. His management of the group was underlined, he who had no problems of discipline in a group that was nevertheless quite large and with some soaked egos, managing to involve everyone in the good courses of the team in Spain and in Europe. Suffice to say that he recovered very well from the post-Real Madrid period, which is not the case for everyone …
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