Sunday, June 4 2006

MADRID: Luis Aragones, the grand old man of Spanish football, was a popular choice when he was named as national coach following the team’s Euro 2004 debacle.

Vastly experienced, fiercely patriotic and widely respected by the players, the 67-year-old was seen as possessing all the right credentials to help Spain break their disappointing run of underachievement at major championships.

After an illustrious playing career at Atletico Madrid as a powerful goalscoring midfielder, Aragones took over as coach at the club in 1974 and steered them to victory in the World Club Cup in 1975, the King’s Cup in 1976 and the league title in 1977.

His coaching CV includes five separate spells at Atletico and stints at Barcelona, Real Betis, Valencia and Real Mallorca, and he ended his career as a club coach with 757 league matches under his belt.

He first emerged as a possible candidate for the Spain job in 1991 when he was interviewed but passed over in favour of Vicente Miera. Seven years later he turned down the post following the departure of Javier Clemente.

After Spain’s disappointing first-round exit at Euro 2004 he decided the time was right and received the overwhelming support of the Madrid-based sports media to succeed Inaki Saez.

Spain were unbeaten in the first 19 matches under Aragones, though they qualified for the World Cup only via the play-offs after finishing behind Serbia and Montenegro in the group stage.

Tactically, the coach has made few changes from the Saez era and has kept faith with the team’s traditional style of patient, possession football while failing to find a solution to Spain’s perennial inability to convert pressure into goals.

He does, however, appear to have helped his players develop a new mental toughness and commitment that has made the team hard to beat.

Gruff, impatient and undiplomatic, Aragones is hardly one of the game’s great ambassadors, but few Spaniards will worry about that if he leads the team past the quarter-finals for the first time since 1950. (REUTERS)