Managers of Iran and Spain have a shared history but their mutual appreciation will be tested at the World Cup in Kazan

Real Madrid were supposed to be celebrating the league title the night the president called time on the manager and the captain. It was 2003 and a season of tension and fraught relationships exploded at the restaurant where Florentino Pérez ended the Real careers of Fernando Hierro and Vicente del Bosque.

Now they are two of the last three Spain managers. In between, the third man, Julen Lopetegui, was sacked by Spain the day before the World Cup began – because he signed for Real. None of which would be especially striking 15 years later except that, as Spain face Iran on Wednesday, a fourth man completed this curious, convoluted circle in Kazan.

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The manager Real chose to replace Del Bosque in 2003 was Carlos Queiroz – and he has revealed that virtually the first thing he did was try to persuade Real to bring back Hierro. He failed but they will come together, facing each other in charge of Iran and Spain.

“I have been wearing these clothes for a long time,” Queiroz said, while Hierro said: “I came here in a suit and I will leave in a tracksuit.”

Queiroz’s coaching career goes back 37 years while Hierro has had a solitary season as a manager, at second-tier Real Oviedo, and had no intention of occupying this or any bench until crisis broke out. But the Iran manager still insisted: “Hierro is the right person to unite a fractured Spain.

“Everyone who has been in the game for a long time knows that football is always capable of showing you something new, so it is not a surprise [that Spain sacked Lopetegui],” Queiroz said. “Things can change at any moment. It was a strange situation and it has passed now. But it’s ironic for me: I fought so much, I tried so hard with [Real’s sporting director] Jorge Valdano to have Hierro as a player, to save the situation. I fought so much for that … and now I have him on the other bench.

“He knows I admire him. The decision was difficult but knowing him well, his quality, he’s the right person. He’s a man, a personality, who for sure can do this. We saw against Portugal that the sacking was not noticed at all.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fernando Hierro said Carlos Queiroz has been doing fantastic work with Iran for seven years, adding: ‘This will be a very hard game.’ Photograph: Jean Catuffe/Getty Images

Later, when Hierro was told about the Iran manager’s words, he said: “I know the year I left Real he really wanted me. We have a very good relationship. I know Carlos well and have done for a long time. It’s a pleasure to talk to him about football. He has been working fantastically for seven years with Iran. They have very clear ideas and this will be a very hard game. But it’s the players who play. We’re sitting on the bench.”

That line has been at the heart of Hierro’s discourse since he took over, unexpectedly and a little reluctantly swapping the role of Spain’s sporting director for that of manager. It is all about the players. He has talked repeatedly about changing as little as possible, describing Lopetegui as having the “copyright” on this side and has been concerned more with containing the crisis and fostering unity. “Family” is another word applied often.

Hierro was particularly swift to defend David de Gea after his error handed Cristiano Ronaldo his second goal in Friday’s 3-3 draw, insisting the rest of the “family” would not abandon the goalkeeper. The players soon followed suit, Sergio Ramos tweeting: “It’s not about never making a mistake; it’s about never giving in. De Gea always in my team.”

As a largely fictitious debate began in Spain as to whether the Manchester United keeper should be dropped, the accidental manager came to the point.

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Asked if he had talked to De Gea, Hierro replied: “I have 23 players and the same medicine doesn’t always work for everyone. He plays. Relax. We trust him completely. He’s one of the three best goalkeepers in the world and we have absolute confidence in his work.”

While Queiroz was keen to praise the man who never got to work with him in 2003, he noted that Hierro does get to work with some of the world’s best footballers. “We’re not supermen like lots of players in the Spain team and I won’t say names because they don’t need eulogies from me,” he said. “But we have a capacity for sacrifice, work, concentration and, the harder it is, the more desire we have.”

Pushed on which Spain player most concerns him, Queiroz said: “We haven’t got time for me to name 23 players. What concerns me is that my players will be strong and focused. Like I said, we don’t have supermen but together we can do super things.”