Luis Aragonés, former Spanish football team coach, dies of leukaemia aged 75
Sunday, February 2, 2014 @ 8:35 PM
SPANISH football team manager Luis Aragonés, who took 'the reds' to victory in the 2008 Euro Cup and paved the way for their success in the 2012 Championship as well as the 2010 World Cup, has died in a Madrid hospital at the age of 75.
Doctors who had been treating the sporting hero for leukaemia for many years were visibly moved at the loss of a great national team coach, saying that by the end he was unable to speak but understood what was being said to him.
Aragonés had been fighting leukaemia for two months, with several relapses, but had not wanted his condition to be made public.
The champion team manager had turned around a side which had been almost a nonentity for decades – the 2008 European Cup was the first international trophy Spain had won in 44 years, and was the first of a hat-trick involving the 2010 World Cup and the 2012 Euro Cup – and the country will be waiting with bated breath this year to see whether 'the reds' achieve four on the trot with the 2014 World Cup in São Paulo, Brazil.
Aragonés also managed some of Spain's most prestigious football clubs, such as Barça FC and Atlético Madrid, which won the League trophy 37 years ago.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com