Deportivo name Vazquez as third coach of the season

Vazquez becomes Deportivo’s third coach of the season.

Madrid, Feb 12 (IANS) Former Celta Vigo coach Fernando Vazquez has been named Deportivo la Coruna’s third coach of the season, after it was announced the football club and Domingos Paciencia were parting ways by “mutual agreement.”

Former Sporting Club de Portugal (Sporting Lisbon) coach, Paciencia, had offered to resign following his side’s 0-3 home defeat to Granada Saturday. The result left them at bottom of the Spanish Primera Liga, and with just one win and a draw from Paciencia’s six games in charge since he was named as replacement for Jose Luis Oltra, reports Xinhua.

Club president Cesar Augusto Lendoiro had persuaded Paciencia to remain and had given him his support Saturday, saying: “We insisted that we did not want this at all. In the squad and board there is unanimity that the coach stays on.”

However, in the light of the coach’s post match comments in which he questioned whether or not the move to the side from the north west of Spain had been a mistake, the club changed its opinion and issued a brief statement on Monday, which read: “The Portuguese coach Domingos Paciencia and his colleagues will no longer coach the first team.”

This made Paciencia the seventh Primera Liga coach to leave his position this season.

Vazquez’s appointment means a return to the Primera Liga for a man who is from the north-western region of Galicia.

The 58-year-old has coached several clubs in the Spanish top-flight, including Santiago de Compostela, who he led to the Primera Liga, as well as Oviedo, Mallorca, Betis, Las Palmas, Rayo Vallecano, Valladolid and Celta Vigo, who he left in 2007.

Vazquez has not coached a club since leaving Celta, spending his time with the Galician football association. He has agreed a deal until the end of the season, and has a difficult task, given that Deportivo have just 17 points from 23 games and are unable to make any new signings to add to their squad.