Luis Enrique steps down as Spain coach due to personal reasons

Luis Enrique steps down as Spain coach due to personal reasons
# 19 June 2019 19:27 (UTC +04:00)

Luis Enrique has stepped down as coach of the Spanish national team for personal reasons, leaving his assistant Robert Moreno in charge until Euro 2020, APA reports citing The Guardian.

Luis Enrique abandoned the Spain get-together prior to their game against Malta on 26 March, having been on the bench for the meeting with Norway, hurriedly leaving the squad and returning home to Barcelona.

Since then he has been unable to return to an active role with the national team and in a statement on Wednesday he said that he had decided to step down “due to the reasons which had prevented me from fulfilling my duties as normal since last March.” Those reasons have not been clarified and the Spanish Football Federation requested that the coach’s privacy continue to be respected.

Moreno was on the bench against Malta and the Faroe Islands and Sweden earlier this month, but the Federation insisted that Luis Enrique was still coaching the team from a distance, choosing the squad, watching training sessions remotely and in constant contact with his staff. That situation had become unsustainable and so Luis Enrique took the decision to back down.

“This is a bitter-sweet day, more bitter than sweet,” Moreno said. “I always dreamed of being Spain coach, but not like this.

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