West Ham United has officially announced that Julen Lopetegui will take over as head coach in place of David Moyes.
After West Ham finished the 2023–24 season in ninth place with 52 points, former Real Madrid and Spain coach Lopetegui will officially join the team on July 1.
“I feel very happy, first of all, to be able to be part of the future of this big Club,” Lopetegui told West Ham TV. “We will try to put our stamp on the Club.
“I feel that we have a fantastic platform. I think the last few years have been very good years to have this base, of course, but my ambition as a coach is always to be better and better, to achieve more and bigger aims, and to encourage and improve the players, the team, and to compete because football is about this: to compete. We are very ambitious about this.
“I am where I want to be. I am here because I want to be here and for us, it was a fantastic day when we closed our agreement here because we our commitment is 100 percent to be here. We had other opportunities but I am very happy that West Ham chose me because I chose West Ham too, so we are really happy about this.
“We came here with the idea and the thought to make a big, big noise. That’s why we came here, and we are excited by this challenge. Of course, we are going to do our best to help the Club and the team to achieve to achieve the best level and to achieve our aims. I assure the fans that they are going to be key in all our achievements.”
The 57-year-old will be playing in the Premier League for the second time. He left Wolverhampton Wanderers in August 2023 after having disagreements with the team’s philosophy.
Wolves had been bottom of the Premier League when Lopetegui joined, but the Spaniard won his first match in charge at Everton and went on to lead them to a 13th-place finish.
He managed Sevilla before joining Molineux, helping them win the Europa League and qualify for the UEFA Champions League in 2019–20.
He had previously served as Real Madrid’s head coach and, before that, had managed the Spain national team for two years, having made an impression during his two-year stay at Porto.
The former goalkeeper for Real Madrid and Barcelona was also capped once for Spain during his playing career.
Ahead of West Ham’s pre-season tour to the USA, Lopetegui will assume leadership. In his first game, he will take on his former team Wolves, and then he will play Crystal Palace, a rival team in London.
On the other hand, the Spaniard will be mentoring Ghanaian playmaker Mohammad Kudus for the upcoming season.
