Spaniard Santiago Denia takes charge of the Czech national football team on a record salary of €70,000 a month

The Czech national football team has a new head coach: 52-year-old Spaniard Santiago Denia, who signed a two-year contract with an extension option on Friday. According to unofficial reports, his salary will be around €70,000 a month (roughly 1.7 million crowns) — three times what his predecessor Miroslav Koubek earned.

The new coach's assistant, Pablo Amo, who was also introduced to reporters on Friday, will earn 40,000 euros (nearly 970,000 crowns) a month. As Football Association chairman David Trunda explained, attracting foreign coaches requires a completely different budget than the association has had in the past. According to him, this costly but promising move was made possible thanks to the union's new sponsors. Trunda assured that Denia's salary would not require cutting funding for other areas of Czech football.

Talks with Denia began back during the World Cup finals in New York and continued in Prague last week. Radek Bejbl, a former teammate of Denia's at Atlético Madrid, helped bring the Czech side together with the Spanish coach. On Friday morning, the association's executive committee approved the candidacy, with only one of eleven members voting against. "The support was overwhelming," Trunda noted.

The arrival of the new coach coincides with a major overhaul of the national team's squad. Václav Černý, who was never called up under Koubek, has ended his international career. Recently appointed captain Tomáš Souček is also considering retirement from the team. Following the disappointing World Cup campaign, Tomáš Holeš, Jaroslav Zelený and Patrik Schick have already parted ways with the national side — though the new coach is actually hoping to continue working with Schick.

"We need to bring in new players for the autumn Nations League campaign, a squad overhaul is necessary, and with the new coach it will be even more radical," said national teams' general manager Pavel Nedvěd. He noted that the coach will need time to rebuild the team, and the federation intends to move toward a more modern style of play. The main goal has been named as preparing the team for European Championship qualification. Trunda confirmed: "We have set ourselves a clear goal — qualifying for the European Championship."

After Koubek's dismissal in early July, the association's chairman spoke of a complete overhaul of the coaching staff, but on Friday he gave no specifics about further personnel changes.

A telling detail: at the association's headquarters in Prague's Strahov, a renovated office had been prepared on the top floor for Denia and his assistant, but the Spaniard himself asked to be placed on the ground floor — closer to the team and the pitch. "He told us he didn't want to sit upstairs, but wanted to be closer to the team and the field, to stay in contact with the other coaches," Trunda said. Denia himself recalled that he spent 15 years successfully working with Spain's youth national teams and is used to being close to his colleagues from the junior squads.

English will be the working language in the national team's locker room — as for Spanish, among the current players it seems only Ladislav Krejčí, who spent a year at Girona in Spain, speaks it. Denia himself promised to pick up some Czech: he greeted reporters at the press conference with the word "Ahoj!" and later showed off the phrase "One pivo." On his very first day on the job, the new coach headed to Prague's Letná stadium to watch a rescheduled league match involving Sparta.

At Sparta Prague, a club with a successful track record of hiring foreign coaches, the Spaniard's appointment was met with approval. According to the club's executive vice-chairman František Čupr, the Spanish coaching school has proven its effectiveness — Spaniards regularly become world and European champions. The club expressed hope that Denia's experience and methods would have a positive impact on the entire development system of the Czech national teams, making Czech football more open to modern approaches.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by sport.cz