Julen Lopetegui, it appears, is not a signatory to the quaint football convention that you do not discuss taking a job while another manager is in that job. He is not the first to trample over that behavioural nicety. And he won’t be the last.
Lopetegui, though, has managed to take things a step further. According to his friends, he has actually agreed to take the West Ham job while David Moyes, the club’s most successful manager for decades, is still in the post.
It feels very much as if Lopetegui’s tenure is being born under a bad sign. That is hardly unusual for the way West Ham conduct their business. Some might say that Lopetegui and the West Ham owner David Sullivan deserve each other.
‘Show some class, West Ham,’ the former England defender Stephen Warnock said on Monday as more of the unpalatable details of Moyes’ treatment began to emerge. There is not much chance of that.
Class is not the first word that springs to mind with either Sullivan or Lopetegui, sadly, but maybe the former porn baron has found the boss he has always yearned for. Perhaps this will be a beautiful union of kindred spirits.
Lopetegui, after all, has form in this area. In 2018, when he was manager of Spain, he agreed to become the new boss of Real Madrid behind the back of the Spanish Football Federation a few days before the start of the World Cup and was promptly sacked.
The federation’s then president, Luis Rubiales – remember him – said he had found out what Lopetegui had done five minutes before Real Madrid’s announcement. The furore cast a shadow over Spain’s tournament and they were knocked out by Russia in the second round. Lopetegui lasted 14 games and 138 days at the Bernabeu before he was fired.
One other thing about Lopetegui: he
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