Hyderabad FC have appointed Spanish manager Manuel Márquez as the new Head Coach to replace the FC Barcelona-bound Albert Roca.
From Barcelona, Manuel “Manolo” Márquez Roca played for a number of clubs in the Spanish lower divisions before retiring at the age of 28.
Manolo’s first coaching job was at PB Anguera in 2002 – the club where he was last playing competitive football at before his retirement. After a year, Márquez left the club and went onto manage AE Prat, CE Europa, Badalona and Espanyol B among others primarily in the second, third and fourth tier of the Spanish league system. He would return to manage AE Prat on two more separate occasions after his initial three-year spell.
In 2016, he was appointed coach of UD Las Palmas Atlético – the reserve team of UD Las Palmas. He helped the club win promotion from the fourth tier Tercera División to the third tier Segunda División B. His achievement led to him being appointed head coach of the senior side in La Liga in 2017. However, he resigned after being in charge for just six matches in which he won two and lost four.
Late in 2018, Manuel took over as coach at Croatian First Division club NK Istra 1961. He was let go after winning only one of his first seven games.
Prior to joining ISL side Hyderabad FC, Márquez was briefly at Thai League 1 club Ratchaburi Mitr Phol FC during the 2018-19 season from where he resigned after a month due to personal reasons.
The 51-year-old Márquez will be replacing Albert Roca at Hyderabad FC who was appointed fitness coach at FC Barcelona under newly-appointed manager Ronald Koeman.
It’s a big challenge for me to join Hyderabad FC as we are set to begin our season soon.
The club has already been preparing and working on a lot of things over the last few months so that makes it a comparatively smoother process for me to settle in.
Given that Hyderabad FC intends to follow the same philosophy which I’ve worked with over so many years, I believe there are common goals already present.
Now it’s just about hitting the ground running and imparting those ideologies to the players.
Manuel “Manolo” Márquez Roca
[…] He went on to coach NK Istra 1961 in the Croatian Top Division and Ratchaburi FC in the Thai League 1 as well, before shifting base to Hyderabad FC in 2020. […]