#3 Albert Celades
Who? The Spain U-21 manager of course! Albert Celades is a figure not widely known to people outside the Spanish set up. However, the ones who do know of the diminutive tactician, would be quite interested in seeing him promoted to the seat of senior coach.
Celades has had a largely distinguished career as a player. He won 14 titles across 223 La Liga games in 12 seasons and was best known for his stints at Real Madrid and Barcelona as a player. As a manager, he has come up through the Spanish Youth Team ranks and may be essentially an in-house choice for the Spanish Football Federation
Manager-Team Match Rating – 3/5
Albert Celades, if he were to succeed, would turn out to be as inspired an appointment as he would be a viable choice for this position. Celades is young, inexperienced at the highest level as manager and doesn’t possess the aura of a Del Bosque even if there are parallels to their careers and behavior.
He does however, have great familiarity with Spain’s next crop of superstars. The Alcantara brothers, Juan Bernat, David De Gea, Paco Alcacer, Santi Mina and Hector Bellerin along with some other younger stars who will play at the Euros are all familiar with Celades who might be the perfect man to lead them into the future. Even if he does lack due experience with senior names, Celades could be worth the risk.
Rumor Rating – 2.5/5
As an option that propagates continuity, Celades is a good option whose familiarity with the current setup will stand him in good favour. However, Spain didn’t have the best time when they last chose to promote from within their present ranks. The Inaki Saez experiment prior to Euro 2004 was an unprecedented disaster and will be on the minds of the members of the Spanish Football Federation when the decision is made. A decision in his favor could well be unlikely.
