Real Madrid hands reins to Zidane
MADRID — Real Madrid fired coach Rafael Benitez after only seven months on Monday and replaced him with its former star player Zinedine Zidane.
Club president Florentino Perez announced the decision at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium Monday, a day after Madrid’s 2-2 draw at Valencia deepened a crisis that started with an embarrassing 4-0 home loss to rival Barcelona in November.
Madrid has won seven of nine matches since the demoralizing defeat to Barcelona but fans continued to demand the departure of Benitez, whose Liverpool side won the Champions League in 2005.
Real Madrid is third in the Spanish league, four points behind leader Atletico Madrid and two behind Barcelona, which has a game in hand.
France soccer great Zidane, who was Carlo Ancelotti’s assistant in 2014 when Real Madrid won the Champions League, has been coaching Madrid’s team in the third division.
It will be the first major coaching job for the former playmaker, whose career was marked by greatness on the field but also by his head-butting of an Italian defender in the 2006 World Cup final.
Perez supported Benitez since the Barcelona loss, saying the Spaniard “was the solution, not the problem,” to Madrid’s crisis.
But fans kept showing their discontent even in an 8-0 win over Malmo in the Champions League and a 10-2 rout of Rayo Vallecano in the Spanish league. They also were not happy with the team’s embarrassing elimination from the Copa del Rey for using an ineligible player.
There had been speculation about former Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho taking over at Madrid, but Perez said the Portuguese coach’s return wasn’t in the team’s plans for now.