Real Madrid place faith in Schuster
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
MADRID, Jul 9 (AFP): Real Madrid on Monday confirmed the worst kept secret in Spanish football when they revealed they had appointed German Bernd Schuster as coach to replace sacked Italian Fabio Capello.
A club spokeswoman told AFP that Schuster, 47, would be unveiled at 1.15 p.m (1115 GMT) while Marca sports daily said on its website that the German had agreed to pay up 480,000 euros to get out of his contract at Getafe, the modest outfit from the suburbs he led to the Spanish Cup final last season.
Real sacked Capello on June 28, even though he had led the club by a whisker to a record 30th league title barely ten days earlier.
Capello had performed a similar feat a decade earlier in his first spell with the club, only to leave of his own accord.
On that occasion, in 1997, Real appointed Jupp Heynckes for the club's first German coach and now they have once again pinned their faith on teutonic methods, having also Sunday welcomed German international defender Cristoph Metzelder into their ranks from Dortmund.
Heynckes, rather like Capello, though in two doses in the latter case, proved a one-season wonder. He did win the Champions League in 1998, but that was not enough for a club that has since ditched no less than nine coaches.
Now it falls to Schuster, a former Real player who comes to the helm after two years establishing Getafe as a solid top flight side, to prove he can step up and conquer Europe.
Anything less, and Real, if their past record is anything to go by, will sharpen the axe again.
Schuster served Real with distinction as a player, winning the league title in 1989 and 1990 before surprisingly heading across the city to Atletico Madrid.
Between 1980 and 1988 he had starred for Barcelona, with whom he also won the Spanish league title
In all, in 13 years playing in Spain, Schuster won three league crowns and six Spanish Cups.
A club spokeswoman told AFP that Schuster, 47, would be unveiled at 1.15 p.m (1115 GMT) while Marca sports daily said on its website that the German had agreed to pay up 480,000 euros to get out of his contract at Getafe, the modest outfit from the suburbs he led to the Spanish Cup final last season.
Real sacked Capello on June 28, even though he had led the club by a whisker to a record 30th league title barely ten days earlier.
Capello had performed a similar feat a decade earlier in his first spell with the club, only to leave of his own accord.
On that occasion, in 1997, Real appointed Jupp Heynckes for the club's first German coach and now they have once again pinned their faith on teutonic methods, having also Sunday welcomed German international defender Cristoph Metzelder into their ranks from Dortmund.
Heynckes, rather like Capello, though in two doses in the latter case, proved a one-season wonder. He did win the Champions League in 1998, but that was not enough for a club that has since ditched no less than nine coaches.
Now it falls to Schuster, a former Real player who comes to the helm after two years establishing Getafe as a solid top flight side, to prove he can step up and conquer Europe.
Anything less, and Real, if their past record is anything to go by, will sharpen the axe again.
Schuster served Real with distinction as a player, winning the league title in 1989 and 1990 before surprisingly heading across the city to Atletico Madrid.
Between 1980 and 1988 he had starred for Barcelona, with whom he also won the Spanish league title
In all, in 13 years playing in Spain, Schuster won three league crowns and six Spanish Cups.