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David Moyes hired as Real Sociedad coach

David Moyes has returned to football with Spanish strugglers Real Sociedad following his disastrous 10-month spell as Manchester United manager, the Basque club announced late on Monday.

Published: 11 November 2014 16:07 CET
David Moyes hired as Real Sociedad coach
Scottish manager Moyes will be the fourth Brit to take charge at Real Sociedad, following Henry Lowe, John Toshack and Chris Coleman. Photo: ANDREW YATES / AFP

"Real Sociedad have reached an agreement with David Moyes to be the coach of the first team until June 30th, 2016," Sociedad said in a statement published on their website.

 "Tomorrow (Tuesday) the details for his official presentation and the backroom staff led by the Scottish coach will be finalised."

Moyes, 51, was sacked in April after less than a season in charge of United as they failed to qualify for the Champions League for the first time since 1995.

SEE ALSO: Ten things everyone needs to know about Spain's La Liga

The Scot enjoyed a broadly successful 11-year spell at Everton prior to taking the job at Old Trafford, although he has yet to win a major trophy as a coach.

Sociedad have been looking for a new coach since Jagoba Arrasate was sacked last weekend after just one win in their opening 10 league games.

However, they responded in style to beat La Liga champions Atletico Madrid 2-1 on Sunday, which saw them move out of the relegation zone.

Sociedad have a history of appointing British managers, starting with Henry Lowe, who took charge for five years from 1930.

John Toshack enjoyed three spells as boss in the Basque town of San Sebastian, while current Wales manager Chris Coleman had an ill-fated six months in charge during the 2007-08 season.

Moyes recently told the BBC that he was interested in coaching overseas.

"It is something that we don't report enough — British managers outside the (British) shores," he said.

"It will actually help the development of coaches, where you can come back and give a bit back to them — tell them the experience you have had working in Spain, Italy, Germany or wherever it may be."

Moyes had a long but undistinguished playing career as a central defender before going into management with Preston North End, then in the English third tier, in 1998.

He joined Everton in 2002 and led the club to consecutive top-eight finishes between 2006 and 2013, despite having to operate on a shoe-string budget.

He earned the admiration of legendary United manager Alex Ferguson during his time at Goodison Park and when Ferguson stepped down at the end of the 2012-13 season, he invited his fellow Glaswegian to succeed him.

But Moyes's tenure proved a disaster and he was sacked in April as the defending champions slid towards a seventh-place finish in the Premier League — their lowest position since 1990.

Australia midfielder Tim Cahill, one of Moyes's most successful signings at Everton, welcomed the news, writing on Twitter: "Great to see David Moyes back in the game @RealSociedad. Was only a matter of time."

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UK

‘Spain is a safe country’: Did the UK really need to impose blanket quarantine on travellers?

The UK government's decision to remove Spain from a "safe" travel list, meaning returning holidaymakers face two weeks in self-isolation has caused anger and confusion in Spain where the tourism industry is already struggling.

Published: 26 July 2020 12:30 CEST
Updated: 26 July 2020 14:46 CEST
'Spain is a safe country': Did the UK really need to impose blanket quarantine on travellers?
AFP

“This decision is an absolute disaster for the recovery, there’s no other way to see this,” Angel Talavera, head of European Economics at Oxford Economics consulting, said on Twitter, referring to the British government's snap decision on Saturday. 

The government announced that from 11pm on Saturday anyone travelling from Spain, including returning holidaymakers, would have to self-isolate for two weeks.

That meant returning holidaymakers faced being unable to go back to work or see family members on their return.

London also advised against non-essential travel to mainland Spain.

The UK government insists the move was motivated by the need to prioritize public health. 

“We have taken this decision to limit any potential spread to the UK. We've always been clear that we would act immediately to remove a country where necessary,” a spokesman from the Department for Transport told the BBC.

The reaction from the Spanish government has so far been fairly muted.

When asked about the British government's decision to re-impose quarantine, a spokesman for the Spanish Foreign Ministry said: “The government of Spain considers that the situation is under control. The outbreaks are localised, isolated and controlled. Spain is a safe country. We respect the decision of the UK government and we are in touch with them.” 

Apart from being a blow to the struggling Spanish tourism industry, which depends heavily on the millions British tourists who visit each year, the move has been met with some consternation in Spain where officials have insisted outbreaks are under control.

There's no doubt the number of cases of coronavirus have been on the rise in recent weeks.

Last Monday Spanish health officials reported that the infection rate had tripled in just over two weeks, from 8,76 per 100,000 inhabitants on July 3rd to 27,39 per 100,000 in recent days.

Albeit the pressure on hospitals remains low, according to officials.

On Friday Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that data from 10 regions showed a rise in cases and hospital admissions.

While many of the 283 active outbreaks were small and could be controlled the overall pattern is one of rising cases, the newspaper said.

But experts say the resurgence is partly due to people relaxing and not sticking to social distancing guidelines, but also due to greater testing capacity resulting in more positive cases being detected.

Catalonia has been affected and forced authorities to ask four million residents in Barcelona to stay at home. The north-eastern provinces of Lleida and Huesca have also seen spikes.

On Saturday Catalan authorities ordered nightclubs to close for two weeks and imposed curbs on bars and restaurants with young people and revellers being blamed for the spike in cases.

The regions of Aragon and Navarre have also seen spikes in cases.

But some parts of the country have been less affected by the resurgence including the southern region of Andalusia and the Balearic and Canary islands.

The fact that the UK government said it was not advising against travel to the Balearic or Canary islands, but would still impose quarantine on travellers returning from those regions, has understandably caused confusion.

Regional authorities in the Canary and Balearic Islands say they would try to get an exemption from the quarantine for people travelling back from the archipelagos.

In an interview with CNN on Friday, the foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, said Spain was one of the countries with the “most controls and mechanisms for identifying outbreaks”.

She dismissed suggestions of a second wave of Covid-19. “We’re not worried; we’re identifying cases and isolating them to cut off transmission,” she said.

“As long as we don’t have a vaccine or a treatment, this is what the new normality will be like. We ask citizens to comply with the restrictions and behave in a responsible manner. There isn’t a second outbreak but there are one-off outbreaks.”

The UK's decision has been met with surprise and dismay among British residents and tourists in Spain.

Michelle Baker, editor of the Round Town Times newspaper in Benidorm told The Guardian: “It's so unfair, we're all wearing masks here and there are only 14 cases on the whole of Alicante. The outbreaks are nowhere near here.”

Some British tourists also lamented the quarantine decision saying they felt safer in Spain than the UK.

“We’re quite frustrated by it to be honest, because it actually feels safer in Spain,” British tourist Carolyne Lansell told Reuters.

Rachel Pinnington, on holiday in Los Alcazares, Murcia said: “It feels perfectly safe here. It feels like a knee-jerk reaction by the government. Everyone is wearing masks. It's uncomfortable in the heat but I feel safe.”

In a bid to prevent new outbreaks fifteen out of Spain's 17 autonomous communities have now made face masks compulsory in all indoor and outdoor public spaces. Only Madrid and the Canary islands are not imposing the rule.

The central government, which insists that this is not a “second wave”, considers that the regions have sufficient tools to control the epidemic.

It has also ruled out the possibility of a new state of emergency, which allowed Madrid to impose a strict lockdown in mid-March which was not completely lifted until June 21.

The UK government has also come in for criticism back home.

“I can understand why the government have made this decision … but of course the way in which this decision has been made in the last 24 hours is frankly shambolic,” said the Labour Party’s health policy chief, Jonathan Ashworth, speaking to Sky News.

Other countries have advised against travel to particularly regions in Spain with the French government urging its citizens not to travel to Catalonia. However it has not imposed any quarantine against returning travellers from Spain.

 

 

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