Real Madrid fired coach Rafael Benitez after just seven months in charge on Monday, with club legend Zinedine Zidane replacing the Spaniard.
“We have taken the difficult decision to rescind the contract of Rafael Benitez as coach,” Madrid president Florentino Perez said. “The Real Madrid board has decided to name Zinedine Zidane as coach of the first team.”
However, the club did not announce the length of Zidane’s contract.
Benitez’s unhappy reign came to an end after a 2-2 draw away to Valencia on Sunday left Madrid four points adrift of local rivals Atletico Madrid at the top of La Liga.
They also trail eternal rivals Barcelona by two points, having played a game more.
Zidane scored a sensational winning goal to hand Madrid the 2001-2002 Champions League as a player, but is short on managerial experience, having only ever taken charge of Madrid’s feeder team, Castilla.
The 43-year-old failed to get Castilla promoted from the third tier of Spanish soccer last season, but they currently lie second in the regional Segunda Division B, having lost just two of 19 games this season.
And the Frenchman was part of Carlo Ancelotti’s coaching staff when they won the Champions League and Copa del Rey in 2013-2014.
“We have the best club in the world, the best fans and what we have to do now, and what I will try my best to do, is ensure the team wins at the end of the season,” Zidane said. “I am more emotional than when I signed as a player, but that is normal, and from tomorrow, I am going to put my heart into doing all I can for this club.”
Zidane is to take charge of his first game as boss at home to RC Deportivo de la Coruna on Saturday.
Perez had publicly backed Benitez, despite the growing pressure in recent weeks, which saw him routinely jeered by his own fans, but is believed to have finally bowed to the will of the players and supporters.
Zidane is the 11th coach to be appointed under Perez in just over 12 years in two spells in charge of the club.
“As president it is an honour to have you at my side because I know for you the word impossible doesn’t exist,” Perez said. “Without any doubt, Zidane is one of the greatest figures in the history of football.”
Right from the start of his reign in June, Benitez struggled to gain the respect of Madrid’s star-studded squad, with many senior players voicing their displeasure at the firing of his predecessor, Ancelotti.
A run of three league defeats in five games in November and last month, including a 4-0 thrashing at home to Barcelona, wiped away the early credit Benitez had gained with an unbeaten 14-game run to start his reign.
Further embarrassment was to follow when Madrid were thrown out of the Copa del Rey for fielding an ineligible player last month.
Benitez’s relationship with the dressing room also failed to improve, with key players, such as Karim Benzema and James Rodriguez, often showing their disgust at being substituted.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier