Goikoetxea is appointed as new Equatorial Guinea coach
The former Spanish international defender Andoni Goikoetxea has been appointed as Equatorial Guinea’s new national team coach.
The announcement by the country’s football federation comes just three weeks before their World Cup qualifier against Cape Verde.
Dubbed the ‘Butcher of Bilbao’ after infamous tackles on Diego Maradona and Bernd
Schuster in his playing days, the 56-year-old takes over from Brazilian Gilson Paulo, whose contract came to an end last month.
Goikoetxea won 39 caps for Spain and was assistant to Javier Clemente at the 1994 World Cup in the United States.
He coached at a host of clubs including Salamanca, Compostela, Numancia, Racing Santander and Rayo Vallecano.
The job in Africa is his first outside of Spain. The African zone Group B match against the Cape Verdians will be played in Malabo on 24 March.
The National Lightning have a single point from their first two group matches.
Equatorial Guinea were co-hosts of the 2012 African Nations Cup finals.
This post was written by
A native of Gasabo, Gilbert is an alumnus of the National University of Rwanda (Faculty of Arts,Media and Social Sciences) and has 8 valuable years of experience as a freelance sports columnist for various magazines in Rwanda & Africa. Before joining as Chief Editor of Umupira, he was the Assistant Coach of an U-14 school football team in Kigali. An expert in interpreting and organizing premium sports content, he has revolutionized Umupira, making it the foremost authority on sports in Rwanda.
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