“His style with Spain and Real Madrid, we could perhaps compare to Manchester City… and his style in Sevilla was closer to Liverpool’s style.”
Style. It is a big question when it comes to the identity of the man who will become just the 18th to take permanent charge of West Ham United. The last guy led the club to their first trophy in more than four decades and delivered two impressive top-seven finishes.
Even as David Moyes achieved those things, there were grumbles about the style of football; grumbles that reached a cacophony in recent months.
What West Ham appear to need now — and hope they have appointed on Thursday — is a manager with an attacking, exciting brand of play and the acumen to lift them towards being a regular top-six club that can challenge for cup honours. Does Julen Lopetegui fit that bill?
Say hello to the new Head Coach of West Ham United 👋⁰
Welcome to London, Julen Lopetegui! ⚒️ pic.twitter.com/2aCO0pY3Km— West Ham United (@WestHam) May 23, 2024
“Julen is a top coach — for me, the best I have worked with,” Pablo Franco, his former assistant at Real Madrid, previously told The Athletic. Franco also gave the above analogy about City and Liverpool comparisons.
“It was like classical music to rock and roll,” he added.
Is Lopetegui the man to deliver what West Ham need in their post-Moyes existence? You don’t get the Spain or Real Madrid jobs without being an extremely good coach, but is he right for the east Londoners? Let’s explore.
Since leaving Wolves on the eve of the 2023-24 season, Lopetegui has held discussions with several clubs, with the Premier League being near the top of his list of preferred places to work.
He stayed in Wolverhampton until at least Christmas, almost five months after his departure from Molineux, while also renting an apartment in London and watching a lot of English top-flight football.
He spoke to Nottingham Forest after Steve Cooper was sacked and with Crystal Palace before they hired Oliver Glasner, and while discussions advanced with the latter they never reached any agreement. Lopetegui often wants a significant body of staff to come with him and a remit of being able to build and transform a squad with a decent amount of money to spend, which was an issue at Wolves. He also turned down Villarreal in Spain and Al Ittihad in Saudi Arabia.
Lopetegui was also interviewed by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, back at Milan as an advisor to the ownership. He spoke well about how he planned to make the players fitter and able to play the intense style the club wants but Milan withdrew their interest after a backlash from supporters that culminated in the ultras going on strike.
West Ham, a club with ambition and spending power, fits the bill for Lopetegui, so much so that despite an enquiry from Bayer Munich at one stage through director of sport Max Eberl, he has agreed to take the job at the London Stadium. Importantly, he appears happy to work under technical director Tim Steidten, the man who led the process to find Moyes’ successor.
A methodical, detailed head coach who is said to produce high-level training sessions, Lopetegui likes his teams to dominate matches.
The 57-year-old is a rarity in that he has had success in his career as both a goalkeeper and a manager.
As a goalkeeper, again Lopetegui is a rare breed in that he played for Real Madrid and Barcelona, mostly as an understudy, making the majority of his career appearances for Rayo Vallecano and Logrones, earning brief international recognition with Spain and a place in their 1994 World Cup squad.
Three years at Barcelona under Johan Cruyff were the catalyst for a move into management that saw him rise through the Spanish youth ranks from under-19 to under-21 level, winning the European Championship at both age groups and earning admirers across the continent before managing Porto (in two years, he took them to the Champions League quarter-finals but won no silverware) and then landing the Spanish national team job in 2016.
During the qualification campaign for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, he blended veterans like Sergio Ramos, David Silva and Andres Iniesta with newer stars such as Isco, David de Gea and Thiago (who he knew from his time as under-21 coach) and they sailed impressively through qualifying.
With Spain unbeaten in 20 games under Lopetegui — including a 6-1 shellacking of Argentina — hopes were high ahead of the World Cup, only for Lopetegui to agree to take the Real Madrid job for the following season on the eve of the tournament. He was abruptly sacked by then-federation chief Luis Rubiales.
Lopetegui lasted just a couple of disastrous months in Madrid, where he oversaw six defeats in 14 games and a 5-1 humiliation in El Clasico. He never looked comfortable amid the pressures at the Bernabeu and was fired after just 139 days in charge.
Lopetegui’s spell in charge of Real Madrid was fleeting (Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)
Not great so far, but it was during the next four years that Lopetegui earned a reputation at club level for being a winner and a shrewd tactician.
The most relevant period to Lopetegui’s new project at West Ham is his three-and-a-bit seasons in charge of Sevilla from 2019 to 2022 — by far the longest stint of his coaching career.
His appointment by Sevilla was far from a popular one: for fans of rival clubs, leaving the national team for Real Madrid in that manner was a betrayal.
Lopetegui was deeply hurt by the questions of his integrity; this is a coach who may not be loved but who demands respect. In his three full seasons in Seville, his reputation was restored.
Working closely with then Sevilla sporting director Monchi (now at Aston Villa), Lopetegui built a well-drilled team that won the 2019-20 Europa League, secured three consecutive Champions League qualifications, and were Real Madrid’s closest challengers in the 2021-22 title race.
The Basque’s demand for total control was central to how that team played — they were defensively solid and built around the ‘triangle’ of central defenders Diego Carlos and Jules Kounde and holding midfielder Fernandinho.
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A structured and systematic approach meant this team dominated possession against the majority of opponents, making few chances themselves but keeping risks to a minimum. That led some fans to grumble about a lack of attacking style, but for a long time, results kept most happy.
Lopetegui’s 4-3-3 was built on attack-minded full-backs providing width while three hard-working midfielders and two inverted wide forwards added grit.
In 2019-20, his first season at Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, Lopetegui guided Sevilla to fourth place and the Europa League title (beating Roma and Manchester United along the way, then Inter Milan in the final).
Lopetegui is never the most open character, but he built relationships with established international stars like Ivan Rakitic and Jesus Navas, while also developing rough diamonds in Moroccan striker Youssef En-Nesyri and Argentine winger Lucas Ocampos. Other signings like Sergio Reguilon, Jules Kounde and Diego Carlos thrived.
Sevilla’s La Liga record in three full seasons under Lopetegui was remarkably similar: three fourth-placed finishes, scoring 54, 53 and 53 goals respectively and conceding 34, 33 and 30.
That team grew old together and the summer 2022 transfer window was a disaster. Monchi later admitted to lots of mistakes, but Lopetegui’s insistence on signing playmaker Isco on big wages was also a huge error. Sevilla had an awful start to the following season and he was sacked in early October after a 4-1 home defeat to Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League, having taken just five points from the first seven La Liga games of the season.
During that last spell, Lopetegui’s nervous demeanour on the sidelines seemed to also pervade his team and the Sanchez Pizjuan stands. By the end, Sevilla fans were happy to see him go, but the fact the club have since gone through four coaches in 18 months, finishing 12th last season and now being 12th again with four games to go, suggests the problems were hardly all his.
Winning the Europa League in 2019-20 was Lopetegui’s crowning achievement as Sevilla boss (Ina Fassbender/Pool via Getty Images)
Yet Lopetegui’s time at Sevilla saw him rebuild his reputation after those calamitous few months in 2018 leaving first Spain and then Real Madrid, but there has been no talk of any return to La Liga. He is viewed in Spain as an introspective and stubborn character, difficult to get to know even at the best of times. There is also a sense of someone who never has the best of luck.
The parallels to Moyes are obvious: consistently impressive league finishes, a clear strategy and a European trophy. Yet the absence of regeneration meant as soon as Lopetegui’s system failed or was effectively combatted, the results soon dried up and there was little goodwill left.
As with Moyes, Lopetegui has principles and the successes to justify them, but West Ham fans hopeful of a proactive approach that entrusts talented youngsters may end up feeling underwhelmed.
Lopetegui had always wanted to manage in the Premier League and had even been prepared to take a job in the Championship to move into English football. This was back in 2016, post-Porto, when he agreed to become Wolverhampton Wanderers’ new head coach working for Chinese owners Fosun.
Instead, Spain came calling and Lopetegui left Wolves in the lurch, but bridges were not burned and, in 2022, with Wolves in the Premier League relegation zone, he agreed at the second time of asking. Well, third actually, given he initially said no yet again (due to family reasons) and Wolves tried to hire Michael Beale instead (he turned them down, too), before the two parties finally came together in November, with Wolves now bottom of the table and four points from safety.
Lopetegui guided them to 13th by the end of the season, again enhancing his reputation, although what West Ham supporters will be keener to appreciate is the style of football he enlisted given they are looking for a manager to take them to the next level in a particular fashion.
In that sense, his spell with Wolves is less relevant than at Sevilla (who Wolves fans will remember passing them off the park with 75 per cent possession in a Europa League quarter-final in 2020), as he was unable to develop a clearly defined style of play at Molineux in what was a firefighter role to lead them to safety.
What he did deliver was a hard-nosed mentality and intensity that underpinned a very impressive rise up the table. By the end of the season, the result was a Wolves fanbase with immense respect for the job Lopetegui had done, but not a great deal of affection for his team, in part because much of what they had watched had made for grim viewing.
Wolves’ goalscoring output increased from the team Lopetegui inherited, but they could still not manage more than a goal a game, netting 23 times in as many league matches, the equal third-lowest in the league during his time in charge.
Wolves clawed their way to safety with an approach based on battling and a sound defence, which resulted in them recording the joint 11th-best defensive record in the league during his tenure, with 34 goals conceded.
Data-wise, he did not do a great deal to help Wolves in both boxes when compared with how they were before/after when looking at their 10-game rolling expected goals (xG) for and against.
There were precious few performances to get the pulses racing, with the odd exception being a notable 3-0 dismantling of Liverpool in February last year and back-to-back home wins against Chelsea and Brentford in April, during which Wolves discovered an energy and tempo that was rarely seen in previous games.
All three came at Molineux, where Wolves earned 22 points from 11 matches under Lopetegui. There were regular changes of system and approach, with a sense that Lopetegui was simply doing whatever it took to cobble together the points needed for survival. He did try to make Wolves a possession-heavy side — they were not sitting deep and countering — but it tended to involve quite a laboured build-up.
A clearer playing identity might have emerged this season following a full pre-season campaign and without the pressure of taking over a sinking ship — both advantages he will enjoy at West Ham.
Instead, Lopetegui chose to walk away on the eve of the new season after his relationship with the club and executive chairman Jeff Shi broke down over what Lopetegui viewed as moving goalposts over summer transfer plans.
At Wolves, there was disappointment that a heavyweight coach had departed so early into his reign and regret that they would not get to see how the team could develop under his guidance.
But among some staff, there was anger that he had walked away from a challenge with a squad that, despite a lack of depth, still boasted a core group of talented players who have gone on to exceed expectations and develop an entertaining brand of football under Gary O’Neil.
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And within the club, the view of Lopetegui mirrored that among the Wolves fanbase, to a large extent. There was huge respect for how he had galvanised the first team from the low that he inherited, largely through his ‘big coach aura’ that injected a new sense of purpose into the players.
But there was also a feeling that Lopetegui and his own coaching staff, led by assistant Pablo Sanz and influential fitness coach Oscar Caro, sat apart from the wider club, with Lopetegui’s intensity seen by many as aloofness.
There was regret at how his departure played out, but a feeling that it was the best move for both him and the club.
The same could be said of West Ham and Moyes, but what comes next is all that matters at the London Stadium now.
Additional reporting: Steve Madeley, James Horncastle, Mark Carey and Colin Millar
(Top photo: Harriet Lander/Getty Images)
