Raúl Promoted To Real Madrid Castilla Head Coaching Job

Real Madrid legend Raúl moved another rung up the coaching ladder today, as he was announced as the new manager for Real Madrid’s second division side Real Madrid Castilla.

BREAKING: Real Madrid legend Raul will coach the club’s Castilla side through 2019/20 pic.twitter.com/KHQipZgHFd

— B/R Football (@brfootball) June 20, 2019

Raúl was arguably Real Madrid’s most prolific striker bar Cristiano Ronaldo, scoring 323 goals over the 16 years that he played for Real.

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The galáctico was actually slated as a potential Zinedine Zidane replacement last year, but he ended up staying as a coach in the youth setup. The position was eventually given to former Spanish national team coach Julen Lopetegui.

For Raúl's sake, it’s probably better that he wasn’t selected, as Real's struggles led to the sacking of both Loptegui and his replacement, Santiago Solari, within one season. In fact, promoting Raúl to head of the Castilla side implies that they may see him as a long term coaching option post-Zidane. He's following the same coaching path as Zidane, who was promoted from youth coaching to Castilla in 2014.

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These in-house coaching promotions show a systematic change in Madrid’s coaching system. Real would, for the most part, poach coaching talent from other big clubs in the past, whereas now it seems as though they are attempting to develop coaches from inside the club.

With the post-Ronaldo Madrid era just beginning, only time will tell as to whether Raúl will have the opportunity to mirror Zidane in leading Los Blancos both on the field and from the touchline.