The shock appointment of Julen Lopetegui, the Spain coach, at Real Madrid three days before his side kick off their World Cup campaign was met with bewilderment and fury as the team’s preparations were thrown into chaos.
The announcement came as a huge slap in the face to Luis Rubiales, the Spanish Football Federation president, who hastily cancelled his appearance at tomorrow's pivotal Fifa Congress and flew from Moscow to the team’s base in Krasnodar, where he will hold a press conference alongside Lopetegui to explain this most untimely turn of events.
In the meantime, the Federation imposed a blackout on players, forbidding them from speaking about the appointment.
Rubiales was voted in as president only last month and his first act was to hand Lopetegui a new contract until after Euro 2020, but the coach’s decision to walk away from the national team as soon as the World Cup ends is a huge blow to his authority.
The new deal was signed on May 22, in the lead-up to the Champions League final and when no one suspected that Zinedine Zidane would walk out on the club just days after beating Liverpool in Kiev and winning a third successive European Cup.
