The other ‘Luis Enriques’

Luis Enrique is not the only one. Today, others 10 Spanish coaches are in charge of a senior team abroad. And all of them are immersed in a challenge of stratospheric dimensions. Panama, the Dominican Republic, Belize, Bangladesh, Qatar, Solomon Islands, Andorra, Armenia, Belgium and Libya also dream of the hand of a Spanish coach.

Thomas Christiansen (Panamá)

The former soccer player, who went through Osasuna, Villarreal, Oviedo or FC Barcelona, ​​was born in Denmark but was international with Spain on several occasions. He played with the Sub-21, with which he reached the semifinals in the 1994 European Championship, and made his debut with the senior team – he played two games and scored a goal – after Javier Clemente called him up when he was playing in the Second Division with the Barca subsidiary. As a coach, he directed APOEL, Leeds United and Royale Union Saint Gilloise before accepting the challenge of qualifying Panama for the World Cup in Qatar. Today, the ‘Canaleros’ occupy fourth position in the Concacaf group, which would allow them to play the playoff against a team from Oceania. In total, Christiansen has led Panama 27 times, achieving 13 wins, six draws and eight losses. He is accompanied on the coaching staff by the assistants David Dóniga and Javier Sánchez, the physical trainer Christian Beguer and the analyst Guillem Escriu.

Inaki Bea (Dominican Republic)

The Basque, who played in the First Division with Real Valladolid and hung up his boots after competing in Austria and Germany with Wacker and Pforzheim respectively, has been in charge of the Dominican Republic team since last February. Bea was José Luis Mendilibar’s right-hand man in Levante and Éibar, but this is his first experience as head coach. The Basque defined his stage at the head of the Dominican team as an “exciting challenge.” “I wanted to get out of my comfort zone, fly… In life you have to make decisions and this is a new opportunity for me, to take the Dominican team to another level, take it to Europe, move my connections and that the boys see and feel European football”, he added in his presentation. Bea has in his ‘staff’ the assistant Juan Francisco Roldán, the physical trainer Juanma Alcedo, the goalkeeper trainer Dani Giménez and the nutritionist ‘Chano’ Albengózar.

David Perez (Belize)

8,338 kilometers. It is the distance that David Pérez traveled to become in 2021 the first Spaniard to lead a club in Belize, a Caribbean paradise with 400 kilometers of coastline and thousands of white sand beaches and turquoise waters. There, in the only country in Central America where the official language is English, the man from Madrid manages Verdes FC, with whom he won an Apertura at the end of last year. His great work at the head of the Verdes gave him the opportunity to also direct the senior team of Belize, where he has the objective of “shortening differences” with the rest of the Central American teams. This 2022 will play the Concacaf Nations League.

Javier Fernandez Cabrera (Bangladesh)

Last January, the Madrid native became the third Spaniard to lead the senior Bangladesh team, on whose bench his compatriots Gonzalo Sánchez Moreno (2016) and Óscar Bruzón, who led the team during the last edition of the Championship, already sat. SAFF, a tournament organized by the South Asian Football Federation. Javier Sánchez Cabrera, who previously worked at India’s Sporting Club de Goa and was the head coach of FC Barcelona’s academy in Northern Virginia, will make his debut as coach this March in two friendlies against Maldives and Mongolia. The Bangladeshi team is in the last qualifying round of the Asian Cup, a competition it has not played since 1980.

Felix Sanchez (Qatar)

After managing FC Barcelona’s Juvenil A team, Félix Sánchez moved to Qatar in 2006 to join the Aspire Academy. In 2013, the Barcelonan took charge of the Qatar U-19 team, with which he won the Asian Cup in the category in 2014. Later he went through the U-20 and U-23 teams until in 2017 he replaced the Uruguayan Jorge Fossati as coach of the absolute. Félix Sánchez continued to make history and in 2019 he led Qatar to win the Asian Cup for the first time. The Qataris, who have a golden generation that competes entirely in the local tournament (Qatar Stars League), played as one of the invited teams in the Copa América, where they gave a great image, and face the final stretch of their preparation for the World Cup that they will organize between November and December of this year. The assistants Fran Sánchez and Albert Fernández, the physical trainers Alberto Méndez, Carlos Domenech and David Rodríguez and the analysts Javi Ramos and Rubén Rodríguez form part of the Félix Sánchez coaching staff.

Felipe Vega-Arango (Solomon Islands)

In 2017, the Solomon Islands Football Federation asked LaLiga for help so that its team would stop being one of the most modest on the planet. That was the reason why Felipe Vega-Arango traveled to Melanesia, to the east of New Guinea and to the northeast of Australia. He arrived to take charge of the technical direction, but shortly after he was appointed coach. When Vega-Arango arrived in the Solomon Islands, his team was ranked 187th in the FIFA ranking. They are currently in position 142 and are the second best team in the Oceania Confederation. Felipe Vega-Arango left in 2018, after reaching the Oceania final of the Russia 2018 qualifier, where he fell to New Zealand. He returned in 2021 and is currently in Qatar playing the qualifying phase for the next World Cup. In their debut, the ‘Brazil of the Pacific’ defeated the Cook Islands 2-0.

Koldo Álvarez (Andorra)

The Basque, who obtained Andorran nationality during his time at FC Andorra and played 79 games for the Principality’s national team, became coach in 2010 and since then has directed 95 games in which the modest tricolor team has experienced growth gradual but constant. In 2017, Koldo Álvarez achieved his first victory in a friendly against San Marino at the helm of Andorra, which had not won for 13 years. Subsequently, the Principality’s team defeated Hungary (2017), Liechtenstein (2018), Moldova (2019) and San Marino on two other occasions (2021). Throughout its history, Andorra has won eight victories and six came with Koldo Álvarez as coach.

Joaquin Caparros (Armenia)

Joaquín Caparrós signed in March 2020 with the Armenian national team and things could not be going better for him. His balance as coach is six wins, six draws and six losses in 18 games, numbers that “I didn’t expect” because, among other things, he said ‘yes’ without knowing the players he would count on. provision. Caparrós’s great success as Armenia’s coach was promoting the Caucasus national team to League B of the League of Nations, something he achieved with only 13 players due to an outbreak of Covid-19. Armenia lost all its options to be in the World Cup in Qatar and is already preparing for a new edition of the League of Nations, where it will face Scotland, Ukraine and Ireland.

Roberto Martinez (Belgium)

For the first time in its history, the Belgian team is at the top of the FIFA ranking. The ‘Red Devils’ reached the world top thanks to Roberto Martínez, who, however, has not yet won anything as coach. ‘Bob’ Martínez came to the Belgian bench in 2016 and since then he has directed 68 games with a balance of 51 wins, 10 draws and only seven losses. The Spaniard reached the semifinals of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, something that Belgium had only achieved once before in their history. The ‘Red Devils’ fell in the quarterfinals of the last European Championship, but they continue to have a generation called to mark an era. They qualified for the World Cup after finishing leaders and undefeated in a group that they shared with Wales, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Belarus.

Ramón Català (Libya)

After falling in the ‘play-off’ for a place in the Arab Cup and not getting past third place in their World Cup qualifying group, the Libyan Football Federation terminated the contract that linked him to Javier Clemente, who in his second stage as head of the African team only achieved two defeats in six games -in the first he managed to win the CHAN, a tournament in which only players from the domestic championship of his country of origin can participate-. The also Spanish Ramón Català, until then technical director, took over his position on an interim basis and will be the one who commands Libya during the friendlies this March against Niger and Mauritania. As technical director, Català is looking for a new coach and the priority is that, like Clemente, he be Spanish.