The Vasco da Gama club announced on Thursday the hiring of Vanderlei Luxemburg, former Brazilian coach and former coach of clubs such as Real Madrid, as its new coach for the remainder of the Brazilian Championship, which ends in February 2021.
Luxembourg's hiring was announced two days after the Rio de Janeiro club fired Portuguese coach Ricardo Sá Pinto amid a disappointing campaign that has him in the relegation zone of the Brazilian Championship and seriously threatened with falling to second place. division.
Luxembourg, 68, had been without a contract since last October, when he was dismissed by Palmeiras, and this month he was hospitalized for a few days due to the worsening of his health after having contracted the covid.
This will be the second time that the former Brazilian coach will assume command of Vasco, the club of which he was coach between May and December 2019, when he also received the mission to save the Rio de Janeiro team from relegation to the second division.
In his first phase as Vasco coach, in which he won 15 wins, 12 draws and 10 losses in 37 games, Luxembourg managed to get the club out of the relegation zone and win a place in the Copa Sudamericana this year.
Vasco currently occupies seventeenth place in the league standings, with only 28 points from 26 games, making it among the last four, which are punished with relegation.
“Luxembourg's contract with Vasco will initially be until the end of the Brazilian Championship, in February, so that it can fully concentrate on meeting the team's sporting goals in this competition,” the club reported in a statement in which it gave understand that his priority is to escape relegation and made it clear that the contract may be extended next year.
Ricardo Sá Pinto was dismissed as Basque coach on Tuesday, after just fifteen games in which the former Sporting Lisbon attacker, Standard de Lieja and Spain's Real Sociedad accumulated three wins, six draws and six losses.
In the South American Cup, under the command of the Portuguese coach, Vasco da Gama was eliminated in his yard by Argentine Defense and Justice.