Javi Gracia, the former manager of Watford, has been hired as the next manager of Leeds United. This comes after Jesse Marsch was fired from his position as manager of the club
Sky Sports has announced that the Spaniard will be joining their team on what they are calling a “flexible contract.”
It was revealed on Monday (19 February) that Gracia was one of two names that were being considered by the Whites.
Additionally, Football Insider reported that the executives at Elland Road had abandoned the idea of leaving Michael Skubala in charge until the end of the season after their loss to Everton on Saturday brought them closer to being relegated.
It has been over two weeks since the American football manager Jesse Marsch was fired from his position at Leeds, but the team’s losing streak has continued.
The fans feared that the losing streak would continue this weekend when they play Southampton, who are currently in the last place in the league, if a significant change did not take place soon. The current standing of Leeds in the Premier League is 19th.
Andoni Iraola of Rayo Vallecano, Arne Slot and Alfred Schreuder of Feyenoord, and Rafael Benitez, formerly of Liverpool and Newcastle, were some of the names that had been rumoured to be in the running for the position of manager of the club; however, fans will be pleased to learn that a manager has now been selected.
Table of Contents
Javi Gracia (Leads United Manager): Bio
Javier Gracia Carlos was born in Pamplona, and he played as a defensive midfielder for Osasuna and Chantrea before going on to Bilbao Athletic. During his three years with Bilbao Athletic, he made 100 games in the league for Bilbao Athletic.1
After that, he moved on to Lleida, the club that made its long-awaited comeback to La Liga in the 1992–1993 season, after an absence of more than four decades.
After spending the next six seasons in the top flight with Real Valladolid and Real Sociedad, he moved down to the Segunda Division in 1999 to play for Villarreal CF. At that time, he made appearances for both clubs.
After one year, the Valencian club that Gracia managed was eventually successful in gaining promotion to the top flight. The midfielder then joined Cordoba as the latter stages of his playing career began to take shape, and he made 39 appearances for the club’s league team before hanging up his boots in 2004.
Javi Gracia (Leads United Manager): Career
The 52-year-old began his career as a manager with the junior team at Villarreal. Since then, he has gone on to coach teams all across Europe and the Middle East, including Cadiz, Olympiacos Volou, Osasuna, Malaga, Rubin Kazan, Watford, Valencia, and most recently, Al Sadd.
His brief term as manager of the Greek club Olympiacos Volou produced the finest management statistics of his career, with a 75% victory percentage for his team during that time.
During his time as manager of the Qatari club Al Sadd, Javi Gracia has guided the club to a win percentage of 72.7, having led the squad to victory in 16 of the 22 games in which he has been in charge. The manager, who is 52 years old, is credited with leading the team to victory in the Qatar Stars League.
He won the Seguna Division twice, the first time with Pontevedra in the 2006-07 season and the second time with Cadiz in the 2008-09 season. In the 2018–19 season, Gracia led Watford to the FA Cup final, where the team finished in second place.
The last time Watford appeared in the FA Cup final was in 1983, making this the club’s only other appearance in the tournament. After guiding Watford to Premier League survival the previous year, Javi Gracia was awarded Manager of the Month honours for August 2018 by the Premier League.
Javi Gracia (Leads United Manager): Tactic
- Ben Foster, one of Gracia’s previous players and the goalkeeper for his current team, believes that Gracia is the type of manager that players will immediately buy into and warm up to.2
- In 2018, Foster gave an interview to the Mirror in which he stated, “The lads have bought into (Gracia’s) ideas and he brings it through really effectively.” The players respect his composure and the fact that he does not engage in ranting and raving.
- “He places a significant emphasis on pressing and pushing higher up the pitch. Work-rate is the most important factor: there is a lot of high-intensity running, shutting down, and closing the space.
- Since he was coaching at Malaga, Gracia has been known to use a 4-4-2 formation more often than other formations.
- Frequently, he would play with two deep central midfielders and two wide players who were allowed the ability to drift infield and contribute centrally to the team’s play. When they played at Al Sadd, Gracia opted for a formation that was more similar to a 3-4-2-1.
- On the other hand, a 4-4-2 formation with wide full backs, wingers drifting infield, one striker dropping a little deeper, rapid transitions, and a tendency to press are all things that are anticipated to be utilised at Leeds.
- Once a defensive midfielder, Javier “Javi” Gracia Carlos is now the manager of the Spanish national football team. Over the course of his 15-year career as a professional football player in Spain, he appeared in 430 matches across both of the country’s highest levels of competition.
- Javi Gracia has been the subject of a great number of people’s inquiries, and they have used the internet to conduct a variety of study about him.
View this post on Instagram
Javi Gracia (Leads United Manager): Family
“Javi” Javier Gracia Former defensive midfielder for Spain’s national football team, Carlos is now a retired football player. It was on May 1, 1970 that he was born, and at the moment he works as a manager.3
Gracia kicked up her professional career with the Bilbao Athletic reserves after being born in Pamplona, which is located in the Spanish region of Navarre. She was a part of the first squad for a total of three years, but she never made a single official appearance with them.
During the 1992–1993 season, UE Lleida won the championship and returned to La Liga after an absence of more than 40 years. He established a new career high with 12 goals scored in all 38 of the team’s games during that season.
A year later, he moved to Real Valladolid, and then two years after that, he made the switch to Real Sociedad. He made the switch to Villarreal CF in the year 1999. After three years, he decided to terminate his contract with this club. He got a contract with Cordoba CF in the year 2003. In 2004, he officially announced his retirement from football.
In 2004, Gracia became the head coach of Villarreal’s youth team, which marked the beginning of his professional coaching career. Yet, after a year in this role, he decided it was time to move on.
Ponteverda CF appointed him as their head coach in 2007, the same year that they finished in second position in Segunda Division B but were not promoted to the Segunda División.
In 2008, he took over as manager of Cádiz CF and was instrumental in the club’s advancement to the second level.
In 2010, he returned to Villarreal, where he was offered a post as the reserve coach for the team.
In 2011, he was given the position of coach of the Greek team Olympiacos Volos; however, he did not last long in that role and was quickly let go. A few months later, AO Kerkira decided to hire him as their new coach.
In the year 2012, he relocated his family to Spain and became leadership of UD Almera. Once another year had passed, he made another move, this time taking the coaching position at CA Osasuna.
