Juanma Lillo, between Guardiola and Manzisidor, after winning the Premier League at the end of May. /
The former coach of Real Madrid is no longer Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City and will be the starting coach of Xavi’s old team
Real Madrid coach at his most convulsive moment, profound connoisseur of the game, excellent polemicist and ideological co-religionist of Marcelo Bielsa and Pep Guardiola, Juanma Lillo ceases to be the Catalan’s assistant at Manchester City to be the first coach of Al Sadd of Qatar , the former club of Xavi Hernández. Lillo takes over on the bench from a former realistic player, Javi Gracia.
The 56-year-old from Toulouse explained yesterday the reasons for his departure from England, after winning the League. “My time at Manchester City has been one of the most enjoyable periods of my career. Working alongside Pep, his coaching staff and this group of players has been a pleasure and I hope I have contributed in some way to the fantastic success we have enjoyed on the pitch.” To this season, Lillo adds another Premier and a League Cup to his record. The sports director of Manchester City, also a former royalist Txiki Begiristain, stated that Lillo’s contribution to the good results of the team “has been evident” in his two seasons.
From Amaroz, which he began training at the age of 17, and Tolosa, which he directed in the Third Division at 20, Lillo’s career is a world map: Mirandés, Leonesa, Salamanca (where he launched his career with promotion to First Division at the age of 29 ), Oviedo, Teruel, Zaragoza, Murcia, Sinaloa (Mexico), Real, Almería, Millonarios and Atlético Nacional (Colombia), Vissel Kobe (Japan) and Qingdao Huanghai (China) witnessed his teaching. He was an assistant to Jorge Sampaoli in the Chilean national team and to Guardiola in City.
Lillo arrived at Real in April 2008, with the team fighting for promotion and the club already plunged into the destructive maelstrom that was about to take the institution away. The discount of the Vitoria game, on the penultimate day, where Alavés came from behind a duel that Real won in the 90th minute, prevented promotion. He led the team in the 2009/10 campaign, in which he was unable to make it take off despite the signing of ‘Loco’ Abreu for the second round.
With firm political convictions and a supporter of a creative and free game, Lillo will have to deal with football and with the situation of a country in the crosshairs of human rights associations.
