Spain Head Coach Julen Lopetegui Sacked

Spain‘s World Cup hopes may have been dashed today as their head-coach Julen Lopetegui, has been sacked with immediate effect.

The decision by the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) comes after Real Madrid announced Lopetegui would be their coach next season and had signed a three-year deal with the Spanish giants. Zinedine Zidane recently resigned after winning the Champions League for the third time in a row.

The Federation had announced a few days ago that Lopetegui would leave the role after the World Cup, but it was reported that Spanish FA President Luis Rubiales was so angry that he was prepared to fire him immediately. Clearly, he has followed through on that anger.

The RFEF have said that the decision was because the negotiations took place “without any information to the RFEF.”

Rubiales continued; “I’m sure this will, in time, make us stronger. I admire Julen very much, I respect him very much. He seems a top trainer and that makes it harder to make the decision.

“You can’t do things this way, two or three days before the World Cup. We have been compelled to make this decision.”

The overall reaction to the news has been shock, largely due to the timing of the announcement.

Lopetegui had led the national side on a 20-game unbeaten run since he took over after the 2016 European Championships, and they had every chance of winning the World Cup in Russia.

However, this has now thrown their tournament into disarray and it has just been announced that under-21 coach Albert Celades has been promoted up the the head-coaching role.

Spain begin their World Cup campaign against Portugal on the 15th of June, followed by matches against Iran and Morocco on the 20th and 25th respectively.

More to come.

[collection name=”small” accordion=”mobile” excerpt=8]

At World Soccer we will update you with all the news related to the World Cup on our website. Make sure you know about the Groups, Friendlies, Dates, Fixtures, Stadiums, TV Schedule, Qualified Teams by clicking on the highlighted links.

Also don’t forget to follow World Soccer on Facebook, and Twitter.