Real Madrid have announced Spain\u2019s Julen Lopetegui will succeed Zinedine Zidane as head coach after the World Cup.<\/p>\n
Zidane surprisingly stepped down after presiding over a third successive Champions League triumph, citing his doubts about the team being able to continue such a remarkable run as the main reason for leaving.<\/p>\n
Mauricio Pochettino of Tottenham quickly emerged as a favourite, though his recent contract renewal seemed to make such a move improbable.<\/p>\n
Speculation soon went quiet about Madrid\u2019s search as attentions were turned towards the World Cup, but they have made something of a surprise announcement on Tuesday in confirming the appointment of Lopetegui upon the completion of Spain\u2019s campaign in Russia.<\/p>\n
Lopetegui, who came through the Madrid ranks as a player, has signed a three-year deal at the club after impressing in charge of the Spain senior side.<\/p>\n
The 51-year-old was hired by the Spanish Football Federation after Euro 2016, when the side were eliminated in the round of 16 by Italy.<\/p>\n
Since then Lopetegui has managed to restore belief in the senior national team ahead of the World Cup and is yet to lose while at the helm.<\/p>\n
Lopetegui\u2019s coaching career has predominantly centred on international football, having enjoyed spells in charge of Spain\u2019s Under-17s, Under-19s, Under-20s and Under-21s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Real Madrid have announced Spain\u2019s Julen Lopetegui will succeed Zinedine Zidane as head coach after the World Cup. Zidane surprisingly stepped down after presiding over a third successive Champions League triumph, citing his doubts about the team being able to continue such a remarkable run as the main reason for leaving. Mauricio Pochettino of Tottenham […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34005,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34006,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34004\/revisions\/34006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}