First team

AGREEMENT WITH JULEN LOPETEGUI FOR THREE SEASON DEAL IN THE SEVILLA FC DUGOUT

The Basque coach will arrive in Seville this Tuesday and will be presented on Wednesday

Sevilla FC and Julen Lopetegui Argote have reached an agreement for the 53-year-old coach to take charge of the Nervión club for the next three seasons. The Basque manager will arrive in Seville this Tuesday and will be presented tomorrow. Lopetegui started his managerial career in the 2003/04 season - taking charge at Second Division Rayo Vallecano not long after hanging up his gloves. He was in charge of Rayo for ten games before signing with Real Madrid in 2006 to lead their scouting team .

In the 2008/09 season he returned to the dugout to take the reigns of Real Madrid's B Team in the Second Division. Come the end of that campaign, he would cut ties with Madrid and join the national setup, leading Spain's under-19 and under-20 sides simultaneously. In 2012, he would win his first title as a coach - an under-19 European Championship, with Sevillistas such as José Gómez Campaña, Sergi Gómez and Pablo Sarabia under his watch. One year later, now managing Spain U-21s, he would taste continental glory again with practically exactly the same group of players.

In the summer of 2014, Lopetegui left Spain's national teams for FC Porto, joining the Portuguese side on a two-year deal. In his first season he would come second in the league, taking Porto to the Champions League quarter-finals in the process (where they would eventually be knocked out by Bayern). Midway through his second campaign - with the team third in the league and in the Europa League after an unsuccessful Champions League group campaign - Lopetegui would be released. Barely seven months later, he would be announced as Vicente del Bosque's replacement at the helm of the Spanish National Team.

His first job was to qualify for the 2018 World Cup - a feat he managed without losing a single game. However, after Real Madrid announced an agreement for Lopetegui to take charge of their side after the tournament in Russia, he would lose his post two days before the start of the World Cup. In his second spell with Madrid, Lopetegui would be given ten league games in charge. Once a goalkeeper, Lopetegui was a product of the Real Sociedad academy and has played at Castilla, UD Las Palmas, Real Madrid, CD Logroñés, FC Barcelona and Rayo Vallecano.

He now joins an exciting new project at Sevilla, taking charge alongside newly-appointed Sporting Director, Monchi.