La Liga: Real Zaragoza Gets a Win, Loses a Coach

Just as quickly as I said Ander Garitano gave Real Zaragoza their first win since Halloween, the Basque coach announced his resignation late Monday night.

The resignation came as a complete surprise to most around the club. Garitano was scheduled to appear at several media appearances but was reported to have a fever, thus missing his appointments.

However, now the truth has come out that Garitano has left Zaragoza, after only two games as head coach. He wasn’t a newbie to Zaragoza, as he came there in 1996 from Athletic Bilbao and stayed there until his retirement in 2002, when he dawned a track suit and became a youth team head coach.

Garitano cited ‘personal reasons’ for leaving the club, but it was widely known that he wasn’t happy with Andrés D’Alessandro and the attitude he was bringing to the club.

Headlines dealing with Zaragoza constantly rang out lines of ‘It’s not a problem with the players, it’s a problem with the attitude’, something that Garitano wanted to chance as the head coach.

‘Given the state I am in right now I would have damaged the team and the club if I had carried on and I want to go now given that the team is in the middle of the table.

‘I don’t feel strong enough to face up to this challenge. I prefer another person to take over because the team needs someone who is 100 percent.’

Zaragoza will again be on the hunt for a new head coach, with all fingers pointing to Javier Irureta, former Recreativo skipper.