Get in position. October 2018. Lopetegui's Real Madrid, who had left the National Team to train the white team on the eve of a World Cup, has not finished starting. A 5-1 against Barcelona in the League seems to put the finishing touches on the coach Basque. It is Sergio Ramos who comes out before journalists to show his face. Questions about the dismissal of Lopetegui follow one another, and also about the possibility that Antonio Conte, formerly of Juve and of the Italian national team at that time, would be the one to replace him … At that point, indeed, Real Madrid had contacted him, as he was without a team.
Bouquets gave his first long change to the question of the dismissal of Lopetegui: “Everyone is free to say what they want and is respectable. We have to wait, they haven't said anything yet. They are decisions that do not correspond to us and us, to make self-criticism, to reflect. And from there, change the streak. “Then, he responded directly to the possibility that Conte's heavy hand would come, which was playing so much: “Respect is earned, not imposed. Neither one name nor another. We have won everything with coaches who already know their names (he said, referring to Del Bosque, Ancelotti and Zidane, all with a great left hand), in the end the management of the dressing room is more important than the technical knowledge of a coach ”. And the captain spoke, a message received by the board, which stopped the negotiations with Conte. It was Solari who was in Castilla, who took command.
Conte himself gave the version of what happened shortly after, although he took away the iron from those words of Ramos, the great captain, who were vetoing him for Real Madrid: “I have not felt used at all. Because of the coach that I am, I preferred and prefer to wait until June to find a new job. Then you never know: in two, three months the desire to train returns and I deny what I just said, “the now Inter coach told the media. On Tuesday night, in Valdebebas, they will meet again with Ramos.