Vicente Del Bosque life and biography

Vicente del Bosque González (born 23 December 1950 in Salamanca) is a retired Spanish football defensive midfielder and current manager. He is currently the manager of the Spanish national football team, taking over from Luis Aragonés following Spain's title success at Euro 2008. He is known for coaching Real Madrid from 1999 to 2003, a very successful period in the club's history. He has worked for many years with assistant coach Toni Grande.

As a player, del Bosque was a defender who played in La Liga 441 times with 30 goals. This career included spells at Castilla CF, Córdoba, Castellón, and Real Madrid. He won five league titles (1974–75, 1975–76, 1977–78, 1978–79, 1979–80) and four Copa del Rey titles (1973–74, 1974–75, 1979–80, 1981–82) with Real Madrid.

Internationally, Del Bosque received 18 caps with the Spanish national team scoring one goal. He appeared for Spain at Euro 80, which would be a disappointing time for the Spanish exiting at the group stage of the competition.

Managerial career
Real Madrid

Del Bosque served at Real Madrid since 1964 and rose through the ranks at the club, however, he only first managed Madrid for a couple of months in 1994 after the sacking of Benito Floro Sanz and before the appointment of Jorge Valdano. He would again manage Real for one game in 1996, while he was then the youth team coach, the club President and board of directors having sacked the current manager Arsenio Iglesias. But in 1999–00, the club management decided to give him the full time job after difficulties with their latest foreign coach, John Toshack, with taking over in November 1999.

In his four seasons in charge Del Bosque ushered the club through its most successful spell in modern history, having steered the club to two UEFA Champions League titles in 2000 and 2002, two domestic La Liga titles in 2001 and 2003, a Spanish Supercup in 2001, a UEFA Super Cup in 2002, the Intercontinental Cup in 2002 as well as finishing in the last four of the UEFA Champions League every year he was in charge. Not since the great Madrid side of the 1950s and 1960s that had Alfredo Di Stéfano and Ferenc Puskás did the club succeed so consistently. Del Bosque was famed for his humble, patient and unassuming style which saw him manage the club as it underwent a policy during Florentino Pérez's tenure as club President that was known as 'Los Galacticos'- where the world's best and most marketable stars were signed for the club beginning with Luís Figo, and including Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo. Del Bosque's management was successful in uniting the many different modern player egos in his star studded team: in the Del Bosque era Real managed 104 wins out of a possible 186 in his time as coach of Madrid. Despite the level of success, many players - in particular the so-called 'Galacticos' - were brought without the input of del Bosque amid often made allegations that the Real Madrid hierarchy (in particular Pérez and general manager Jorge Valdano) had more control over transfer policy, team selection and other aspects of club that minimalised the level of control Del Bosque had during his time as manager.

Life after Madrid

Shockingly, Real Madrid decided to not renew Del Bosque's contract in 2003, just a day after he won the club its 29th League title and a week after the club signed David Beckham. Del Bosque was offered the post of technical director but turned it down, leading to many suggestions in the Spanish media that there was indeed a much rumoured political split at the club involving Del Bosque and several players, especially captain Fernando Hierro (who was asked to leave the club in the summer of 2003), on one side, while Jorge Valdano and Florentino Pérez wielded the axe of control to in their words, 'shake up the team', on the other. Pérez said in an interview with BBC Sport: "Del Bosque was showing signs of exhaustion. I want to be sincere about this – our belief that he was not the right coach for the future."

The BBC article states: "It is a strange tale from start to finish - how the shy, mustachioed man from Salamanca came to be in charge of the most expensive and talented bunch of footballers in the modern game, won the biggest trophies on offer and then got the boot in favour of a man yet to be named. With the Real superstars, del Bosque was extremely popular - partly because he was happier to let them get on with it. Cool as a cryogenically-frozen cucumber, he managed to avoid confrontations with his charges, despite the stellar egos in the squad, and never once lost his calm in front of the media."

Furthermore, as a testament to how successful Del Bosque was, Real Madrid have failed to reach the heights of living up to their 'galacticos' name tag in recent years since Del Bosque's departure- a tag that they managed to shine with during his time in charge of the same derivative of star quality players. Real have changed seven coaches in the 4 year period since his departure and did not win any major trophies until they won the La Liga title in 2007, under new coach Fabio Capello (who was also sacked afterwards).

After Iñaki Sáez resigned in the wake of a terrible performance at the 2004 European Football Championship which saw Spain having their worst result in the tournament since 1988, del Bosque was approached as a possible manager of the national side, however, he was not interested in the job and the job was subsequently given to Luis Aragonés.

With Beşiktaş, del Bosque arrived in Turkey to much fanfare and hope, but failure to deliver results saw him get the sack towards the tail end of the 2004–05 season.

After Mexico was barely eliminated by Argentina in the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the Spaniard was offered the reigns of El Tri but the Spanish technician refused the offer. Vicente del Bosque's cellular phone rang only hours after Mexico's elimination in the World Cup. On the other line "a high representative" of Federación Mexicana de Fútbol Asociación (FEMEXFUT) identified himself, offering him the post of Mexican coach. Del Bosque said the conversation was a "warm one," and was surprised to receive the offer so quickly right in the middle of the World Cup. FEMEXFUT's director asked del Bosque to think about the offer "with a calm mind." After 18 days Del Bosque made his decision, however: "No Thank You." Del Bosque said he felt honored to be asked to coach Mexico's national side, but that his priorities lay in Europe, and Spain especially. FEMEXFUT had offered del Bosque a minimum of $2 million per year.

During the 2007 Real Madrid crisis, del Bosque spoke on the line saying that the departure of Ronaldo was a mistake, and he was one of the candidates and possible names to replace Fabio Capello and once again become manager of the team, however, Bernd Schuster was awarded the job on 9 July 2007.

Spanish national football team

On 11 March 2008, del Bosque announced that starting June 29, he will replace Luis Aragonés as the coach of the Spanish national team, but it was only confirmed on 15 July 2008.

Spain under del Bosque began their 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification campaign successfully, defeating Bosnia and Herzegovina 1–0 with a goal from David Villa. Spain defeated Armenia 4–0 three days later with two goals coming from David Villa, and one each from Joan Capdevila and Marcos Senna, with a notable debut from Bojan Krkić, coming on as a substitute and defeating rumours that he will swap allegiances to Serbia. This win secured the Spaniards a first place spot in their group with six points. The next round saw Spain defeat Estonia 3–0 , then, four days later, beat Belgium 2–1 away — an 88th minute strike from David Villa (his fifth of the campaign) earning them the win. This result maintained their 100% start to the qualifying campaign.

Since del Bosque was appointed to the job, five players have debuted with the Spain team: Bojan Krkić, Andoni Iraola, Fernando Llorente, Diego Capel, and Sergio Busquets, while one uncapped player, Fernando Amorebieta, has been called up but failed to debut.

On 9 June 2009, in a friendly against Azerbaijan in which Spain won 6-0, del Bosque became the first manager in all of football history to win his first 10 games as debut manager of a national team, the previous record was nine held by João Saldanha of Brazil. The record currently stands as 13 successive victories, with the last winning match being a 2-0 win against South Africa in the 2009 Confederations Cup, followed by a 2-0 defeat in the semifinal stage of the same competition against United States.

On 14 October 2009, Spain joined the very closed circle of teams having won all World Cup qualifying games, realising a record-breaking ten wins in ten games.

Read more