Julen Lopetegui rejects the offer to become Wolverhampton Wanderers' new head coach..

2022-10-12 18:02

Julen Lopetegui rejects the offer to become Wolverhampton Wanderers




Julen Lopetegui has turned down an offer to be the new head coach of Wolverhampton Wanderers, according to Sky Sports' renowned Spanish transfer journalist Guillem Balagué.


According to the report, Lopetegui flatly rejected the Wolves invitation due to his family's reluctance to relocate to the UK. Guillem Balagué also revealed that Wolves' Chinese chairman, flew to Spain to meet with Lopetegui and negotiate with him about the possibilty of taking over the club's managerial role, but in the end the latter still returned empty-handed.



A head coach who just had no intention of buying into the club's ambitious plans


It is worth mentioning that this is the second time that Wolverhampton Wanderers have lost the possibility of hiring Lopetegui as their new head coach.


After Fosun International acquired the club six years ago, Chinese chairman Jeff Shi considered hiring Lopetegui as a head coach, however, as the 56-year-old former Real Madrid star had agreed to take over the Spanish national team's head coaching role, hence Wolves can only turn to Nuno Espirito-Santo as their managerial candidate at the time.


The 56-year-old Lopetegui became Sevilla coach in the summer of 2019, during which he led the club to a Europa League title and ensured the club's status as a regular in the Champions League.


In January last year, Sevilla also renewed the contract with Lopetegui until 2024 to reward him for his extraordinary leadership skills, however, due to a poor start, during which the club had only won once in the first 7 matchdays of La Liga, which sees them plummeting into the relegation zone in 17th place, coupled by a 1-4 heavy home defeat to Borussia Dortmund in the UEFA Champions League group stage game last Wednesday, Los Nervionenses eventually had to reluctantly part ways with him.



Turning attention to the one coaching in Germany for real?!


Additionally, according to a report from authoritative British online outlet HITC Sports few days ago, after being rejected by Lopetegui, Wolves is very likely to turn their attention to targeting Mainz's current Danish head coach Bo Svensson as their next managerial candidate.


The 43-year-old Svensson has helped Mainz to achieve a stable performance since replacing Sandro Schwartz in 2021.


Last season, he led the Die Nullfünfer to a 8th-place finish in the Bundesliga.


Earlier, Wolves announced Bruno Lage was sacked after the club slipped into the relegation zone after a 2-0 loss to West Ham on October 2.


Since then, U18s coach Steve Davis and U21s coach James Collins have jointly taken over the coaching task as interim managers for the Premier League side.