Atletico Madrid have agreed to appoint Quique Sanchez Flores as coach until the end of the season, the La Liga club said on their Web site on Friday.
Earlier in the day, they sacked Abel Resino from the post after a poor start to their campaign.
Atletico are 15th in La Liga with only one win from their first seven games and are rooted to the foot of Champions League Group D without a win or a goal after being hammered 4-0 at Chelsea on Wednesday.
The 44-year-old Sanchez Flores, a former Real Madrid and Valencia defender who was also capped by Spain, is to be presented at the Calderon tomorrow morning.
Resino’s assistant Santi Denia will be in charge of the team for the visit of Real Mallorca in La Liga this weekend.
Sanchez Flores guided Getafe to a respectable 13th place in their first ever top-flight campaign in the 2004-2005 season, before taking the helm at Valencia.
He led his former club to third and fourth place finishes over the next two seasons, but was sacked three months into the 2007-2008 campaign after a string of poor results.
Last season, he steered Benfica to third place in the Portuguese league before stepping down.
At an earlier press conference, Resino defended his record after eight months as coach.
“I remain convinced that a couple of good results will change all of this,” Resino said.
Resino replaced Javier Aguirre in February and engineered a late surge to grab fourth place in the league and a slot in the Champions League. Although they saw off Panathinaikos to make the group stages, the team have struggled.
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